Lucy Robinson's Blog, page 4

Loving New York Day 6: Food Challenge part II

Next up in my challenge: Trish from twitter challenged me to try a TWIZZLER and a TWINKIE.

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Loving New York Day 5: weirdness and madness

There’s a very funny article in this week’s Time Out NY. ‘Comedian Chris Gethard makes a case for why our city is – and always will be – weird as fuck.’

Just five minutes before I bought said publication I’d been saying to Marge ‘one of the things I love about this City is that it’s COMPLETELY MENTAL. Wherever you go, someone’s doing something really weird or mad and nobody ever takes any notice.’

In the article, Gethard suggested that anyone who believes that New York’s madness was swept away by Mayor Giuliani should just take a good look around them. So that’s what I did yesterday. During a half-hour walk from Chelsea to midtown, I kept my eyes peeled and saw the following:

1. Extremely tall man dressed as woman, holding one of his shoes. ‘I have a hole in my shoe,’ he shouted at me, brandishing the shoe (it was a black Croc, if you’re interested.) ‘You gotta help me!’ I made a very sympathetic face, because I’m British (the guy in front of me had told poor Shoe Man to go fuck himself) and said I couldn’t help. ‘I love you,’ he said sadly, as I walked away.

2. Two large mongrels being pushed down the street in an old-fashioned pram. Not little yappy dogs in a bag, I’m talking two big mutts hanging out of a pushchair from the 1980s. And the owner was wearing a suit.

3. A man who may well have been naked underneath a pair of denim dungarees, shouting, ‘CAN YOU FEEL THE FOOT OF GOD?’ He definitely wasn’t saying ‘love of god’ or anything else: it was definitely foot. I know this because I turned round and followed him to check.

4. A woman carrying a big roll of carpet on her shoulder, talking to the tree right outside Marge’s apartment. I thought she was on a handsfree at first. But of course she wasn’t. This is New York.

Loving New York: WATER + WAITERS

What happens in the UK when you want a glass of water with your food:

Customer: Oh, and some tap water please.

Waiter: Slight nod; expression of distaste

*Fifteen minutes elapses*

Customer: excuse me . . .

Waiter: (Cannot reply; waiter has lost sense of hearing)

*Food arrives*

Customer: And can I have that tap water, please?

Waiter: Yes, just a . . . (disappears)

*An hour elapses*

Customer: I’d like the bill please.

Waiter: Alright. Here’s your water. (Looks really annoyed, as if customer is a massive twat for wasting water)

What happens in NY – and, as I recall, pretty much everywhere else in the US:

Waiter: HI THERE! How are you! Your necklace is so cute!

Customer: Oh! Thank you!

*Chat ensues. Waiter is so friendly that customer wants to cry a bit. So open. So kind and cheerful. Customer feels drunk on love and forgets to ask for water*

*Customer looks down to find that during that exchange the waiter has somehow brought them a huge glass of iced water anyway*

Customer: WOW! THANKS!

Waiter: (Is confused) Oh, you’re welcome . . ?

*Five minutes later, customer has had a few sips of water. And you know what? The waiter is RIGHT BACK THERE, giving them refills. They refil the customer’s glass again and again, even when they’re paying the bill. And they keep on being nice. ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE MEAL.*

It is hard to put into words how happy this makes me.

I’ve used a picture of McDreamy just cos.

Loving New York: Day Three

SO MANY THINGS! I love ALL THE THINGS!

But here are some highlights from Day Three:

1. Mad flower Man

Man runs into grocery store. ‘HELP,’ he shouts. He is sweating.

‘I NEED A FLOWER RECOMMENDATION.’

I listen up. I like this sort of thing.

‘THERE’S A GIRL. I NEED TO BUY HER SOME FLOWERS. I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO GET HER.’

I smile kindly. ‘Let me help you,’ I say in my smoothest English accent.

‘THANK YOU’ he yells hoarsely.

‘You like her then?’ I ask, taking him outside to the flowers.

He looks even more wild. ‘I love her,’ he wails. ‘I am so in love with her, and she doesn’t know. I’m meeting her for dinner in five minutes. Help me. Help me.’

I tell him to buy hyacinths, cos they are fashionable at the moment, AND they smell amazing, AND they have them in white which is more unusual. I can tell he isn’t keen. I can tell he feels he had to buy roses, so I direct him towards a classier colour than the nasty pink he is staring at. He is so grateful he hugs me, sweat and all. ‘THANK YOU,’ he screams, running off towards 9th Avenue. ‘THANK YOU FOREVER.’

I loved this so much. Can you imagine that happening in England? A man asking for help? A man telling a complete stranger he’s in love with someone and begging said stranger for help?

2. Cheesecake and Feet. Junior’s is a pretty rank cakerie in Downtown Brooklyn, famous for its (very average) cheesecake. Marge and I went just cos we like to get involved with things like cheesecake, legendary or not. We took our cakes to get a pedicure and sat there, stuffing ourselves, while nice women did our feet. We were both in heaven and we both felt awful sitting there like that. The whole having-someone-scrub-your-feet-on-a-stool-while-you-sit-on-a-massive-massage-chair thing is very uncomfortable for English people.

3. Not buying clothes. This is a complete lie. I HATE NOT BUYING CLOTHES WHILE IN NEW YORK. IT IS WHERE I DO MY BEST SHOPPING. I was doing so well at not buying any clothes (see here for info: I’m not buying clothes for the whole of 2014) and then I arrived in New York and *wails* I WANT ALL THE CLOTHES! I WANT THEM! Marge had loads of money-off vouchers in Bloomingdales and we went there and . . . and . . . AND I COULDN’T FUCKING STAND IT. I am so much more shallow than I’d ever imagined. Bugger. Never mind. I thought I’d chuck it in my Wot I Loved blog just in case I start to love this situation.

4. Driving through Manhattan in an open-topped car playing MIA. Nothing much to say about that. We are massive twats. It was brilliant.

Loving New York: Day Two

Katy Regan, who is a turd, challenged me to eat a battered corn dog. Here is what happened.

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Loving New York DAY ONE

I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!

As you can see, I look like an alien, I smell like a tramp and I sound like a MAN. A growly sexy man, except I’m a rotten smelly woman.

Anyway, what’s up, yo!

As many readers know, I blog most days about things I love because, since doing a thing called the Lightning Process a few months back to cure my ass of M.E., I’ve discovered that life is in fact amazing and it’s worth celebrating every tiny thing. And when I’m in New York I love ALL THE THINGS.

So here’s what I’ve loved already:

1. British Airways. They are so wonderful! They sound like BBC continuity newsreaders in the 1940s! Their captains sound dashing and handsome and they chat to you over the tannoy as if you are their mate who’s come over for a beer. Or a horlicks or whatever they’re drinking in that post-war bubbble. AND I had asparagus risotto that didn’t make me want to barf, and every single film that I want to watch was on their film thingy. I watched Dallas Buyers Club, and decided that Matthew McConaughey is the finest actor on earth. He broke my heart. He was incredible. Then I watched American Hustle and literally couldn’t stop staring at Amy Adam’s breasts. Aren’t they amazing? Their chief cabin lady gave me water and almost had to perform mouth-to-mouth when I arrived on the plane at a flat-out sprint. I got to the airport hours too early and yet still nearly missed the flight. Am a huge twat.

2. American airports. They do love a good uniform in America, don’t they? I love everything about their airports. The unstinting commitment to NOT SMILING at security, the adverts, the Smarte Cartes, the fact that EVERYONE (apart from the security people) wish you a nice day . . . Hudson news, sloping afternoon light, carpets, nice-sounding people babbling away in what must be English, although I can never understand a word of it . . . Oh, I love it all.

3. MANHATTAN. My best friend Marge, who I’m staying with (I love Marge SO MUCH) forced me to go for a walk last night, so I’d stay up late enough to not wake up at 3am (although I did anyway) and even though I couldn’t really speak, or walk, or function in any way, I still felt just utterly thrilled and happy and energised and invigorated and inspired. (And fucking mental, too, but that’ll pass.) These days, everywhere is my Happy Place but this city is absolutely up there in the happiest, most brilliant, sparkly AWESOME places I’ve ever been.

I end with a challenge to you, dear readers. On twitter and facebook I’ve already been challenged to eat Twizzlers (Trish) and a Cronut (Stuart). They have explained what these things are and I am intrigued and appalled. I’m going to try them! So I’m throwing down the gauntlet. Tell me – in the comments below, or my FB page or my twitter account, what you challenge me to eat and I will do my best to try it. I will video the results. GO!

Wot I loved today: non-mental packing

A FROG (filmed Robinson Blog) about another bloody miraculous change brought about by the Lightning Process, which I learned a few months back. SERIOUS MIRACLE. Enjoy. X

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Wot I loved today: having THE POWER

My head, earlier: fuck fuck fuck, there’s loads to do, fuck fuck fuck, let’s try and do it ALL NOW

Me: Hang on. Let’s stop. Is this a helpful state to be in?

My head: YES. IT IS THE ONLY WAY.

Me: Really?

*short pause*

Me: You have a choice here. Be all mental about having lots to do, or just have a really nice, chilled day doing what you can.

My head: Oh.

Me: What’s it to be?

My head: I reckon the nice day.

Me: Me too. Shall we do it?

My head: Yes. Let’s do it.

It really is that simple. I can turn off all unhelpful noise in my head and choose to do something much better. I LOVE this shit! It is POWER!

Wot I loved Today: The Man’s selective blindness

The Man, when he takes his clothes off, leaves them in a heap on the floor. From that moment on they become invisible to him.

This is what he sees when we walks into the bedroom:

And this is what I see:

It has been a challenge, inserting this into my Life I Love blog strand. But I’m determined to love it. (Grits teeth, tries REAL BLOODY HARD)

Wot I loved today: Writing river

It doesn’t happen often to me, but at the moment it is: my fourth novel is flowing like a great big river. Not one of those crappy rivers that moves fast but is full of shopping trolleys and dead Alsatians but a big clean river, straight from a nice-looking mountain where no animals stop for a poo.

I am writing a good three thousand words per day which is quite a lot, given that my absolute limit for writing is three hours per day. And when I review the words, they’re GOOD.

As usual the early stage – up to about 25k words – has been like giving birth (to a big, difficult baby) so I feel like I deserve this break.

Hurrah! I am an actual writer! Who is writing! Not an uncertain woman floundering around in a big brown turdy river! BO!