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raw umber lighting
Friday, November 30 2001
Gretchen had arranged to meet up with Jacob and friend Evan this evening in Park Slope for drinks. But first she wanted to take me to a sort of pan-oriental restaurant and lounge down on 5th Avenue called Long Tan (presumably neither Long nor Tan are intended as English words). We randomly ran into Ray and his posse down there and decided to join them at big six person table for dinner. I didn't really know this, but Ray is almost as gadget-obsessed as I am. My gadget count tonight was zero and his was at least two, a cell phone and a digital camera. He'd just bought the latter and was delighting in the spontaneity made possible by filmless photography. I don't know how he affords it; he hasn't had a job since his workplace was destroyed by the collapsing World Trade Center. Indeed, almost no one in Ray's posse is employed. Gretchen told me that it's perfectly normal and expected for young people to go into massive credit card debt while living in this city. But not me; this is the city where I emerged after a year and a half pinned beneath a massive and diverse mound of financial obligations.
Long Tan was an appallingly hip joint for Brooklyn, complete with raw umber lighting, a DJ equipped with two turn tables and a microphone, and supermodel waitstaff. Gretchen tells me the prices used to be cheaper, but they were still fairly reasonable (an entrée was $9).
[REDACTED]
I drank a couple beers and ate a very spicy vegetable/shrimp curry that made me sweat and my nose run.
(Incidentally, I think the condition affecting my eye recently was a mild case of Dacryocystitis. The pain, redness and swelling (which were never anywhere near as bad as that picture you saw if you visited that link) are gone, but when I tug at my lower eyelid, there's still a swollen mass visible down there in the murky redness.)
After dinner, Gretchen and I split with Ray's entourage and we walked down 5th Avenue to the Loki Lounge, the bar where we'd be meeting up with Jacob and Evan. Gretchen thought the Loki Lounge a bit pretentious for her taste, but it would have been an awesome place if only it had been in Los Angeles when I lived there. We found Evan and Jacob back in the cozy brick-walled couch area talking up some chicks who had, according to Evan, gone out specifically to dash the hopes of the guys who dared to hit on them. Evan and I hit it off well, and even made plans to go do something on Sunday without either Jacob or Gretchen. He works in the web division of Lifetime.com, and, since they're looking for a web developer expert in publishing tools, I'm going to apply there for a job. There's no web job quite as stable as one that doesn't mind being a money-losing web adjunct to a television channel.
As we were walking homeward, uphill and eastbound on President Street, my bladder was painfully stretched with post-processed Sam Adams. Luckily we came upon a fire smoldering in a trashcan and it was my civic duty to extinguish it.
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