Soundtracks

It's time for a typical "here's what's going on" post. Enjoy.

A lot has happened in the past day or so. Yesterday I had my first interview with Buffalo Exchange, a resale shop much like Cheap Thrills in Fayetteville. Immediately following that, I had an interview with the Patagonia store in Soho, about six minutes after which they offered me a job - $12.50 an hour is not too shabby, in fact, it's ridiculous. Unfortunately, however, it's a weekend/as needed gig.

But anyway, after all that I met up with Rachel on the corner of 4th and something else - got pizza, ate pizza, liked pizza - that kind of thing. So then we headed down to the Financial District to catch the free Books show, which found us arriving after all the tickets had been given out. Bigtime bummer.

But the Brooklyn Bridge beckoned us, as it was Rachel's last night in town, so she called the shots and off we went - lights and water and wind and horns - beautiful.

Afterward we headed to Avenue A with plans to visit the Life Cafe, however these plans were quickly discarded when word from Will informed us that Natalie Portman was indeed at a nearby bar where he and Shivani were hanging out.

So to Natalie we went.

And yes, she is that beautiful in real life.

So Rachel and I are at the Magician with Will and Shivani, you know, shmoozing and the like when we notice another celebrity: Justin Long drinking a Stella Artois.

After Justin left, his beer sitting lonesome on the table, Rachel and I did the only logical thing when a celebrity leaves a half-dead soldier just lying around: we grabbed it and each took a swig. So there, I drank after the Dodgeball guy.

Also - Rachel said "Hey Nat" to Queen Amidala and I went out of my way to bump into her - rude, but worth it... I guess.

At this point it was getting late - I had an actual job to get to at 9AM this morning and Rachel had to leave Brooklyn for her flight at 7AM, so off to the F-train we went.

Unfortunately, we were going opposite ways - Rachel, Will, and Shivani downtown to Brooklyn and myself uptown to Brooklyn. I said goodbye to Will and Shivani and gave Rachel a hug, needless to say I was sad knowing it'd be months before we'd be able to hang out again. So we found ourselves on opposite sides of the tracks - in every way it was a very bittersweet ending scene to our movie - I'm thinking possibly a Tom Waits song would be soundtracking the bit, played of course by a street musician on the stale subway platform and echoing through the tunnels.

And as we waved our goodbyes, our respective trains approaching, I realized she was leaving and for me, this was not a trip. This was the beginning of my summer in New York - Rachel leaving, beginning a new job, actually worrying about my miniscule portion of the rent being due soon, thinking about friends and family back home and how much I already miss them.

The trains soon roared in and Rachel, Will, and Shivani disappeared as I stepped onto the train alone to make my way back to Brooklyn. I sat down in the corner, leaned my head against the window and felt the immediate weight of loneliness being draped over my spirit. The train lurched forward and carried me into the New York night.