HOW TO KICK A DEAD GIFT HORSE -- ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY; or, PROVERBS, CHAPTER 1.5

on the third day, i rested. god, as they say, didn't sleep with everyone in rome in a day, and he needed to take at least one for himself to admire his handiwork while rehydrating and watching television. (glory be to the extra long weekend.) but that didn't mean i couldn't eat. to the contrary: baby, as they say, gotta eat. first, however, baby had to finish up his all night interview with TED (spreading ideas and absolutely nothing else), which might have ended more promisingly had the light of morning not shown baby the abysmal quality of TED's books.

the saturday crossword maybe isn't the best for your rest day, but verb had it for free, and the morning was young. unfortunately, i'd spent nearly all of my battery getting my interview materials together amidst the hilarity of having depleted the last reserves of rum in caracas, and when it died i figured i shouldn't be incomunicado (as they say) with the other set of keys in case there was business needing doing that wasn't going to have any other way back into the apartment. an excuse to sideline the crossword with only three clues answered? perhaps...but i would take it with me. and i took my cup from verb too, to the apartment and then to the southern restaurant where i ordered a mug of coffee anyway because it made the doughnut cheaper. you do the math -- because i didn't. it was my rest day plan to chase all of the rum in caracas with all of the coffee in williamsburg until my kidneys forced me to drink all of the fizzy non-alcoholic campari something that we found at the cheese shop when she was buying ingredients for pesto later in the day. either way, that is, i was coming out ahead. a dollars worth of one, a cup of coffee's worth of another, as they say. and in the end, even with the extra breakfast sandwich that we got for the table to share, everyone came out pretty well, including our servers, including tip. if there's one thing worse than cool, it's expressed authenticity. (with age, no resignation to collective wisdom, as they say.) refreshingly, the cool southern place didn't claim to be authentic. and, even better, it was deliciously cheap.

one stop later at blue bottle (you know, that one place in new york that the coffee bar you're in reminds you of?), she and i didn't get much further with the puzzle, but we did have a good time staring at it until someone had the giant fucking balls to flaunt the less than day old amnesty of the torch passing and get in line at the bar wearing a powell's tee. unfortunately, big balls or cute dyke-y recent transplant cashier or not, no one was going to have his or her face sat on at that place this morning after that low blow.

so she and i went down to the pier. we weren't there for smorgasburg, but neither were we immediately hungry (and the guy who told me it wasn't to miss was also the one who told me that larry lawrence was the bar to go to, so, you know). plus, we could see all of the food carts from where we were sitting on some steps in the shade, and it wasn't hard to imagine what was on offer. the new white street food refugees had escaped the flames and gotten asylum before the torch passing proceedings and the enactment of the amnesty. bored again with the scene, we played hot lava monster, hopping shade patches as far as we could down the pier, at the end of which we were welcomed with a pretty view of the skyline of old new york. could that ever have been public housing? then, turning back, a view of the authentic loft living experience of new brooklyn. did she know about "flag wars"? i asked. she didn't, so i gave her a run down. but as we were hot lava monstering through authenticity town back towards the streets of walk-ups strung with the flag of puerto rico, i was thinking less about that movie than adriana camarena's article in this summer's issue of n+1. "street food" is about the changes taking place in the mission district of san francisco, but one of camarena's most poignant statements goes for anywhere and everything on the way from christopher street to the castro, over to the mission, and back again to williamsburg: "we think of gentrification principally in terms of real estate, race, and class, but i more often find that food is the thermometer reading the temperature of gentrification." food for thought, as they say.

or so i was thinking. and at my next interview, when he asked me if i was a foodie (because we'd been talking about the strudel he'd had at smorgasburg and i'd told him about the southern place and the pesto she'd made for late lunch), i asked him in turn why he thought we needed a baby word for being hungry. and, well, i don't think i got the job. and rightfully so, because it wasn't really the occasion for misplacing the acute guilt i was feeling over what camarena describes (and well and in depth) as her "class and identity contradictions." you'll have to just believe in mine. or, as they say, not. the point is, who am i to talk. breakfast was still fifteen dollars. and, i mean, i shut myself up eventually by stuffing my mouth full of clam pizza at fornino. but i was only quiet over dinner. because then i made us stop for ice cream. in my defense, however, it was my day of rest, and i needed it, and replenishment, if i was going to keep on talking the talk, as they say, the next morning when i was going to have to walk the dog and bitch about the flea market. yes, the food carts would be gone, but damn if white people didn't like buying other people's marked up trash, which will remain trash...until i can afford it...