cool notes from new york

when i went to kmart yesterday, it was my day off, the apartment was stifling and suddenly filled with the newly returned k's possessions, i arrived at the checkout with my new transparent vinyl covered clothing rack only to find i was without my trusty american atm card. panicking only slightly i thought back to the last time i used it, a shopping spree at h&m, pants, socks, shirts? sticky tape to finally attach the japanese tautou to her designated position and to try and fix some of the amazing records i bought at the street fair on saturday (music of the alps, loungy compilations called, sunrise, temptation, or featuring bored housewives with cocktails and fake picket fences) to the gold and white wood paneling, or was it at the dynasty supermarket just above canal street, where i am always the only caucasian shopper, trying to find cheerios among the many different chicken feet and dried sea urchins.
i returned from kmart, huge martha stewart box in tow, to find that the apartment was thrust in an even deeper, but decidedly cooler chaos, since k's too kind fireman brother had sprung for a remote controllable air conditioning unit, which now obscures part of the, according to him, extremely fire hazardous fire escape. i was just about to call the bank and have my card canceled when k suggested i go back to the store and ask if i had left my card there. the jaded city dweller i have become was immensely shocked at the show that unfolded at the supermarket. i spoke to the manager who was extremely helpful and talked to all the checkout girls in turn, one of whom remembered me and in rapid fire chinese directed her boss to my card.
faith in humanity restored, i spent the following hours blissfully unclammy, camped out on the couch correcting a paper on gender mainstreaming for my mom, interrupted by a groovy night out with the archi-pals at the new, and undiscovered hipster hotspot, palais royal complete with the ramones on flatscreen, lingerie drying outside, hidden on the other side of our block among the exterminators and herbal medicine stores of mott street. i returned, pleasantly buzzed on vodka limes, that perennial of summer drinks, strangely unfamiliar to americans. the electronic hum of the airco put me in a buddhist state sedate enough to help sleep the night through without escaped to the kitchen to down huge glasses of icy filtered water or to the cutesy bathroom to dunk my head under the new york tap. i am now just about to finish my recommendations on coupland's eleanor rigby and look forward to the rest of the week, which will bring more visitors, more humidity, a concert by the lcd soundsystem, and more, much more nights of non sweaty, remote controlled sleep. x. f.