I made it to New York City without a hitch! You guys would have been proud of me. I took the rail from Newark, NJ into NYC without ending up in Pennsylvania ;-). Most of the time, when I take the plane into Newark, the cab fare cost about $60, so this trip, after talking to a fellow passenger, I decided to try to get to NYC with the rail link for $15, a big reduction in cost! The rail goes all the way to Penn Station, NYC, and from there, I can get a cab to my hotel.
The dangerous part was that there was another Penn Station in New Jersey, so I was warned not to get off there, OR, if I didn't pay attention, I'd end up in Pennsylvania, possibly. LOL.
But I arrived safe and sound in good old NYC. It was the first time I went into the tunnel under the river, which was a mind-boggling experience, even after jumping out of an airplane recently ;-). I mean, from the sky, I could see below me, but under the earth? It's like...um...yikes, what if the tunnel leaks? I think I understand how those Feehan Carpathian brides felt like when they were forced to go to sleep underground by their dumb Alpha Jerkosaurus mates ;-).
I am trying a new hotel and so far I really like it. For a reasonable price right in Midtown, it has a room bigger than most NYC cubby-holes, and it's equipped with free Internet (Yay! As you know, most charge $10 a day) and a new flat panel TV! Pretty good, huh? And it comes with free continental breakfast (which I'm having right now). There's a rooftop bar that's partially open air, and the bartender is a cute guy who doesn't know how to make Toasted Jenn Almond.
But a great little gem of a hotel, I have to say, with quite a few French businessmen and tourists entertaining my ears and eyes. I'm patting myself on the back for this find.
Yesterday, I walked to Grand Central Station for my signing at Posman Books, and finally met Stacey Agdern, who's, by the way, the RWA Bookseller of the Year for the NYC chapter. She's a fabulous woman, with lots of energy, and I'm so glad I got to meet her. Watching Stacey handselling books to each customer was such a pleasure. She was knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and each customer walked away from the romance corner of the book with more than one book, including mine, which she recommended to many new readers. I am in awe at her smooth and magnetic persuasiveness!
After the signing, Stacey and I decided to head off to Chinatown to eat at a Malaysian restaurant. This is the part where we got lost ;-). We walked from the subway and I saw this sign advertising foot massages for $7, so I told her we needed one. She agreed.
That was the strangest experience ever. It seemed that, for $7/10 minutes, you could have ANY part on your body massaged! It's a body-part massage place! And it was all done in semi-darkness publicly, bed-by-bed, with other strangers, mostly MEN, lying there having their backs or necks massaged! I guess that was why it was so darn cheap! LOL.
We went for it, anyway, and you could hear Stacey moaning with pleasure as the Chinese women pounded and rubbed and squeezed and knuckled the bottom of our feet. Boy, they were good! $7 for $10 minutes a foot? We were ready for more walking after that! Stacey called it the salad-bowl massage parlor, heh.
We then went off to look for our restaurant, made a wrong turn and walked all the way to almost a dead-end, where many Chinese people were standing around dressed in black in front of a doorway with traditional lanterns. It turned out to be a funeral parlor, with ceremonies for the dead being held right then.
I turned to Stacey and said, "I don't think we'll be finding a restaurant at this end!" We turned around and it was kind of eerie, with the quietness of that particular street, since a few minutes ago, everything was so festive around us. When we turned the corner, we were back on the main happy part of town, and I remarked, "Hey, see how fun I am? First I take you to a body part place, then I took you to a whole dead body place!" That cracked Stacey up so hard, she just said, "Awesome!" LOL.
We finally found the Malaysian restaurant and I treated her to some good satay, wonderful Hainanese Chicken Rice and FANTASTIC nasi lemak, a special curry and rice concoction. Stacey and I ate and ate and ate in between marvelous conversation about books, favorite authors, and publishing in general. We had rambutan drink, a fruit juice. The rambutan is a hairy red fruit, and in Chinese, we called it "red-haired thing." Inside is opaque-white sweet fruit, with a pit in the middle.
We sort of rolled out of the restaurant after that and walked the calories off up and down Canal Street, looking at different wares for sale. I pointed out the longan fruits, which meant "Dragon Eyes" in Cantonese but didn't buy any. Not tonight! Too full.
When we finally parted ways, I walked all the way up to Fifth Avenue just to get some NYC atmosphere, smell the night garbage in the air, and then headed back to the hotel, just in time to see the NY Yankees end their season. So solly, Yankee (coughSQcough) fans!
Deciding to have a congratula...commiserating drink, I went up to the rooftop bar I mentioned earlier. It was a humid night and the little breeze at that height felt so good! I ordered Toasted Jenn Almond and watched in amusement as the young man made a concoction that had none of the drink's ingredients. He kept looking at me for some kind of confirmation as he tossed in a shot of this and a shot of that, and being a good customer, I kept a straight face and didn't say anything as he squirted more stuff than I thought possible into one small drink. Hey, my room was just a floor below, so I figured there wasn't far to go if I got drunk on one little drink.
So I paid for it, sat down, watched the starless night sky and took a gulp. I knew he was watching me. I didn't even let out a cough as fire exploded behind my eyes, LOL. God, that drink was fabulously strong. I'm going to have to ask him to make another Toasted Jenn Almond his way again some time, heh.
I toasted the sky for another great day ahead. Watched it swim in front of my eyes. Thought I was skydiving again for a few secs as my head felt disembodied from the rest of me. Hey, another body part-related event!
Bade the bartender goodnight and headed back to my room. On the way, I saw a woman on the floor by the elevator, surrounded by her friends. She'd stumbled and hurt herself, cutting her nose and forehead with her spectacles. She looked woozy. I wondered whether she had drank two Toasted Jenn Almonds.
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I'll tell you a secret. YOU CAN'T NAP WHEN THERE ARE NEEDLES PULSING ELECTRICITY UP YOUR LEG!!! It stung when he pulled the needles out and there was sensitivity in the areas where the pinpricks were. Made me feel like a sissy because usually I could stand quite a bit of pain (remember when I fell off the roof on my head? Onto concrete? Okay, then).
The day I arrived was also the day after NY signed the new gay marriage bill and there was a gay parade. That night, some of the paraders were still in costume, eager to pose for tourists.
