IT SLEEPS, I TELL YA...

It’s not true, what they say about New York being the city that never sleeps. I arrived at JFK after 9 p.m. after a full day of travel from Vancouver. Not that it actually amounted to that. You just lose three hours and, along with a “quick” connection in Seattle, the day somehow quite literally flew by.

As things were timed, I went without a meal. Airport food prospects are dismal for me even under normal circumstances. In Seattle, the only choices near my departure gate were McDonald’s or a fish chowder spot. Not real options for a quirky vegetarian. (Side note: Why is it that McD’s is finally introducing a veggie burger in Europe but not in North America?) By the time I figured out NYC transit and dealt with a subway delay due to evening maintenance—this week only, of course—I got to my Chelsea hotel at 10:57. Whole Foods, my go-to for a healthy meal, closes at 11 and I couldn’t negotiate the mechanics of self check-in on time to drop off my suitcase, run the block and a half, race in and grab any salad with the word kale or citrus. Yep, Whole Foods had the nerve to get some shut-eye.

That left me walking the streets of Chelsea, passing on a 24-hour diner with one patron on a stool and searching the shelves at 7-Eleven. I settled on a highly unhealthy pint of Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream and then, just to be sure I wouldn’t awaken hungry in the night, opted for a cheeseless Domino’s pizza.

How the hell did I from healthy Whole Foods to total junk food? Slippery slope. Maybe it’s what I wanted all along. Maybe I had something to do with that medical emergency on the plane at SeaTac that resulted paramedics coming aboard and a family having to get off. Ice cream! And pizza! Let this be my What-Happens-in-New-York-City moment.

The woman taking my pizza order made no effort to repress her disgust. “You want no cheese.” Not posed as a question. More like a wad of phlegm she was spitting back to me. If there was any subtext, it was, Why haven’t I quit this f*#king job? If she had the chutzpah of The Soup Nazi, she’d have declared, “No pizza for you.” The best she could do was deny me spinach as a topping. “It’ll be burnt.” Huh? “If the pizza has no cheese, the spinach is gonna burn.” Pretty sure she made that up. How would she even know? I got the sense “hold the cheese” wasn’t a thing. Translation: You wanna f*#k with me, I’m gonna f*#k with you. So I asked for onions. If they burn, I like ’em even more.

I’m sure there was a lot still happening beyond the two blocks I walked to grab dinner. (Pizza and ice cream! Together!) And I realize Whole Foods should not be a Big Apple barometer. The weird thing about walking around Manhattan is, after a while, it always seems I’m either walking in circles or the same few establishments have multiplied in a bad retail cloning experiment: Duane Reade drugstore, Le Pain Quotidien, Pret à Manger, nail salons, souvenir shops and Johnny’s/Jimmy’s/Joey’s Pizza. (Apparently women know enough not to ascribe their name with mediocre pizza by the slice. Yeah, New York, I called your pizza mediocre. But then maybe I carry grudges. None of these guys, not Johnny, not Jimmy, not Joey, have ever had vegan pizza in the window. Not once.)

I could have headed back out in search of non-Whole Foods night life after eating every morsel of my pizza and ice cream. (Surely it would take a few hours to go up two waist sizes.) Of all nights, this first night would be the easiest for me to go yawn-free until closing time—whenever that is—in some gay bar in Chelsea or Greenwich Village. (That’s where they are, isn’t it?) Midnight is only 9 p.m. back home, 2 a.m. is only…yeah, yeah, you can do the math. But it’s telling that I Googled Whole Foods before my trip but not gay bars. I decided I’d rather stay in and read the label of my colorful Ben & Jerry’s pint, fretting over how much fat and how many calories were in each mouthful. It led to a different kind of action. I promptly Googled my jogging route to the High Line and beyond and then set my alarm for eight, an Are-you-crazy?! five in the morning back in Vancouver.

I really like New York City. I just don’t do it the way everyone says you’re supposed to. Maybe I’m not cut out for this city. Maybe I should be booking trips to Omaha or Saskatoon instead. But I’ll take it in the way I want to, all the shoulds and supposed tos be damned. And maybe that’s pretty close to the New Yorker mindset after all.

A COSTLY SWIM

Okay, this back-in-the-city thing can be dangerous. I just went for a $183 swim.

Technically, pool admission was only six bucks, but after my laps, I took a stroll down Main Street. Nice day and all that. One wander into a funky clothing store and I coughed up the rest of the tab on four tees. It could have been worse. I tried on eight.

The most I ever spent after a swim in my former small town was the price of milk. All right, milk and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. A bargain outing.

In my decade of rural living, clothing shopping was a ferry away. Good thing, in retrospect. But only when I peek at my bank balance. I do love clothes. And, more than that, I love the unexpected discoveries that come from seeing what a neighborhood has to offer.

Vancouver’s gotten trendier in my absence. Casual wear still rules but retailers have ventured beyond hiking gear and Dockers. As long as I don’t have anyone come up to my condo unit, it doesn’t matter that I still have no furniture. I’ll be stepping out in style. And, really, without a sofa, there’s no reason to sit around on a stool at home.

Still, it would be good to show some restraint. I shan’t swim again until next weekend.

  

TREATS AMONG THE GRUNGE

The last time I stayed in Portland, I had two sleepless nights since the hotel was right across the street from a gay bar. No, I did not suddenly hook up. That would just be awkward for a prude like me. Instead, I laid awake listening to the pulsating club beat and then the drunken shouting that passes for a conversation in the middle of the street after last call. As nice as my boutique dorm room was at the Ace Hotel, I swore I’d never stay there again.

Instead, I chose the historic Benson Hotel, which turns out to only be a few blocks from my previous accommodation. It’s still part of the Grunge District, out-grunging similar areas of Vancouver and Seattle. After settling in, my dog and I set off for a self-guided walking tour—with no guidance whatsoever other than a map littered with advertised establishment logos. All the ads seemed so anti-grunge.

We walked by a block of food trucks and, although my dog would have settled for any of them, nothing satisfied my picky vegetarian tastes. We moseyed onward to a vegan restaurant, recommended by the hotel concierge. A very nice woman whose body was completely covered in tattoos—remember when tattoos meant DANGER? (Or was that just me?)—offered to hold my dog while I stepped in to order. As I retrieved my dog and waited for my carrot beet apple ginger juice (“The Rising”, of course), the tattooed woman ran to fend off her car from two drunk men who were insistent on breaking in, even with her present along with a cluster of outraged citizens. (I was clueless, positively un-civic, mistaking the yelling for some early partiers leaving a certain nearby club.)

The dog and I zigzagged along sidewalks, working our way to the water. We encountered many friendly homeless folks and a few drug users caught up in their own escapist state of mind. (No judgment. At a certain low point, I can see how escape would feel like the best option.) Each corner I turned led to something seedier. It got to the point where I stopped letting my dog sniff pee spots since I couldn’t be sure if the scent was canine or human-derived. The distinct stench nostalgically reminded me of Santa Monica parking garages back when I lived in Southern California.

An oasis appeared! I lucked upon a Ben & Jerry’s and allowed myself a double scoop waffle cone (Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz and White Russian!). I can’t get either flavor in Vancouver. It’ll take some intense workouts to work that off, but one must indulge every now and then. It is my vacation, after all. (There. Suitably rationalized.)

I walked along the river, crossing on an old train bridge, now a pedestrian/cyclist pathway. Graffiti artists competed with one another to tag the posted signs, so much so that I could not discern any part of the original message (“Danger. Bridge Subject to Collapse”?!) On the way back, I passed a naval ship from California, moored at river’s edge with sailors looking utterly bored as they sat in lawn chairs, smoked cigs and stared back at passersby. The men acted like zoo animals with attitude.

Next to a congregation of early street campers with heavily marked up arms, I came across a large line of people for what I presumed was the night club du jour; instead, the patient folks awaited a doughnut fix, the street marked off with the temporary rows one might navigate to go on Pirates of the Caribbean. Doughnuts? How ridiculous! It was an easy judgment, being as I’d already filled up on ice cream, a far better cause for treadmill penance.

Come morning, I trod familiar ground, fueling up at Stumptown Coffee and, yes, “accidentally” happening upon Voodoo Doughnuts and finding my way in the line, something I could justify as it was only half as long as the night before. (Besides, the bathroom mirror at The Benson was the most forgiving I have encountered in months. (Forget towels and mini shampoo bottles. I wanted to smuggle the full length mirror (and lighting) in my carry-on bag.)

I asked for the two most popular vegan doughnuts. I know, Dear Reader, that must seem like a paradox, mixing “popular” and “vegan” in the same sentence, but they don’t raise an eyebrow in Portland. This is the No Judgment Zone for all walks of life. Were the doughnuts worth the wait...and the weight? Probably not. I’m not exactly a doughnut connoisseur. As I tourist, I dutifully seek out lines and get sucked in by the hype. I’d say that most people would have oohed and aahed over the peanut butter chocolate doughnut. I preferred the drier, more subtle other one until the candied gobs slapped atop the icing became overpowering and nuked my tastebuds.

And what of the Ace Hotel, that unfortunate lodging that came with complimentary, albeit ineffective, earplugs? Still in business. The gay club across the street two years ago has shut down, replaced by a ramen noodle house and an under-renovation space that looks to house future trendy shops. My timing was all off. Or I needed to support the gay business with a few dances, drinks and one of those forgettable hookups. Yes, it’s all my fault the gay bar closed.

Driving away from Portland, I began to pay for my sins. Yes, that sugar coma feeling overpowered the last-minute caffeine surge I imbibed at a café called Public Domain. This after I had repeatedly brushed my teeth in the hotel room in a frantic moment of regret reminiscent of Lady Macbeth. Out, damned sugar! Out, I say! And as if to rub more sweetener in the wound, the oldies station on my car radio played a perfect piece of pop confection: The Archies’ “Sugar,Sugar”.

Sweet memories, indeed.