This morning I woke up after a night of wine, beer, and whiskey revelry and went down to my deli to get coffee, the paper, yogurt, and hemp granola (which is the fucking bomb, by the way.) On my way back up I passed by the homeless man who hangs out on our stoop. He was wearing hospital scrubs (clearly he'd spent the night at Bellevue), the bottom portion of which was covered in poop. As was our stoop. A fellow vagrant shouted "Dude, you're a mess!" and he said, "Yeah, I need to find some sweatpants." I went upstairs, scarfed my hemp granola, and went to work the lunch shift for five hours.
Work was busy, and since I had to work the night also I got a break for an hour and fifteen minutes. I came home, and the homeless man was clad in civilian clothes and was no longer covered in his own feces. Congrats, dude. I then did the Fourth of July in New York party thing complete with kebabs, potato salad, beer, and setting off fireworks on the rooftop in 45 minutes and sprinted back to work.
Work was dead. I had one table that ordered the $65 bottle of Franciacorta (the Italian champagne) and when the bartender gave it to me and put the replacement on ice to chill, the bottle exploded, sending shards of glass into the face of our friendly Bangladeshi backwaiter. He was a little peeved. The night proceeded to get even slower when the fireworks started. We'd had the go ahead to drink whatever we wanted so we all ordered our wines (Langhe Arneis - a white from Piemonte, the land of Barolo, for me.) The manager put on some Black Sabbath which was a perfect complement to the sounds, smoke, and light of the fireworks. I love work the most when it's abnormal and surreal like that. And when I can drink expensive wine for free. Anywho, I got to leave early and proceeded back to the party on my roof.
Things were still semi-raging, and I found a half full (always an optimist!) bottle of warm Two Buck Chuck, poured myself a glass, and added some ice cubes. (Just like Liam!) Then Ellen and I played with sparklers and an ember flew in my eye and scratched my cornea:
Note that I never spilled my wine, so classily placed between my knees. Priorities, people. I've scratched my cornea once before. It was Christmas Eve in seventh grade, and my sister and I were playing that pen and paper game Pigs in a Pen, Squares/Boxes, whateveryouwannacallit, and we got into a fight and I tried to rip the pen from her hand and in the process stabbed myself in the eye. I went to the emergency room and got a tetanus shot and some numbing eyedrops and a gauze patch. You can imagine how cool I felt sitting on the bench at my junior high basketball tournament that weekend wearing my patch. Fortunately now I have no self-consciousness and will rock my homemade eyepatch until this puppy's healed.
4 comments:
Oh no! Gina, I wish you a quick recovery. Corneal injuries are the worst! I, no joke, gave myself a corneal abrasion (accidentally)with a joystick as a kid. (On the last level of an Apple IIC video game, I got so excited that I pulled the joystick back so hard that the suction cups keeping it affixed to the desk let loose all at once; and there i was, a boy flinging a big piece of plastic towards his pupil.)
Thus, for my tenth birthday, I wore an eyepatch. My dad took me and my friends into Manhattan for the day, the highlight of which was the cheesecake at Shun Lee West. Anyway, the joystick-to-the-eye was the most painful thing that's ever happened to me. Aside from how my 6th grade girlfriend, Christine, dumped me in study hall at the beginning of 7th grade. But that's a story for another day. Stay strong & heal, Eric
hehe, thanks eric! turns out it's not quite as bad as i'd initially thought. 36 hours later it's just like there's an eyelash (one of the little bottom lid ones) permanently affixed to my eyeball. i can deal.
that joystick scene had better make it into one of your movies.
i love your blog so much. heal quickly. and don't forget who got you those nyu broken social scene tickets before i even knew i liked broken social scene. *so* jealous.
thank you thank you thank you! that was quite possibly the best concert experience i've ever had (not trying to make you more jealous, seriously) so i really am grateful and have never forgotten from where those tickets came.
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