A New York Weekend, Literally and Metaphorically

It was a New York weekend, bracketed by the purchasing of beautiful, frivolous shoes at ridiculously low prices. On Friday I bought a pair of sandals made of the thinnest straps of the softest suede in the palest pink, criscrossed with ribbons and lined with metallic silver leather, telling myself that they were an absolute necessity for my friends’ summer wedding. On Sunday I bought a pair of knee-high black velvet boots embroidered in their entirety, including their medium height, perfectly shaped heels, with a tapestry of rainbow-colored flowers, telling myself that they were an absolute necessity for New Year’s. In purchasing these shoes, I experienced all the ecstasy of a both literally and metaphorically sexual nature normally attributed to women buying beautiful, frivolous shoes at ridiculously low prices.

I cooked haphazardly for my boyfriend in my ill-equipped kitchen. I cooked him imperfect ravioli and structurally unsound omlettes. In cooking these imperfect ravioli and structurally unsound omelettes, I experienced all the feelings of anxiousness to please, shy pride and a desire to nurture of both a literally and metaphorically sexual nature normally attributed to women cooking for their boyfriends in their ill-equipped kitchens.

We shopped for winter coats in used clothing stores. The dust and mold in the used clothing stores gave us allergies that ranged from mild (mine) to severe (his). The winter coats in the used clothing stores had imperfections that ranged from the synthetic fur on their hoods having been tumble-dried against manufacturer’s recommendations and fused together like dreadlocks to sleeves that were too short. I bought an enormous yellow rain slicker and my boyfriend bought a thermally-lined hooded sweatshirt in an army surplus store on a tumbledown street in a part of Brooklyn that used to house a booming martime industry and will soon house 40,000 new residents in luxury high-rises. In envisioning these 40,000 new residents riding the elevators of their luxury high-rises up into what was now only sky, I experienced all the rage and sadness of a both literally and metaphorically primal nature normally directed by the earlier gentrifiers of a place toward the final wave of gentrifiers who destroy everything that was either literally or metaphorically real about it.

We dined out finely with the two friends I have known for half my entire life. I realized that when I first met these friends, one in the seventh grade and one in the summer after the eighth grade, I didn’t realize that I was only half as old, half as wise, half as dumb, half as defeated, half as brave, half as optomistic as I would be at some later date. We spoke of the future in terms just as vague. Maybe we would formalize our association as a publishing company named after the nearest subway stop, all get famous and be forever remembered. Maybe when we were twice as old as we were now we would all be rich enough to fight over who would get to pay the bill. Yes, maybe we would be rich and famous, with well-equipped kitchens in a time not too far from now, when this neighborhood consisted entirely of luxury high rises. In dining finely and talking of our adolesence and dreaming grandiosely of the future, I felt the strange nostalgia for the present moment of a both literally and metaphorically heartbreaking nature normally attributed to people dining finely with their oldest friends and newish loves.