The Sunday Times
Part 1. Fishing
So sometime last week I straggled home from after-work drinks at about 11:30 p.m. I was feeling guilty because I hadn't been home any time before 11 p.m. or so since, like, forever. I always mean to spend time with my family but then I don't, because coworkers want to go out for drinks (and lawyers want to drink A LOT - I can attest to that fact even though I'm not a lawyer yet), or because I want to go see my boyfriend, or because I have plans with a girlfriend. And then even if I do get home early by some miracle of life I usually just end up giving my parents a sullen hello, getting shifty-eyed, and stomping straight up to my room where I smoke weed and look at porn all night. Just kidding.
Anyway, I was feeling guilty for coming home late again. (That was the last relevant thing I said. Late in my house is defined as after my grandma goes to sleep. That also is not really relevant.) My dad looked up from his newspaper and asked me what I was doing on Sunday. "Um, what time Sunday?" I asked, because I had plans to go out on Sunday night for my girlfriend Jocelin's birthday. He said, "Sunday during the day." I said, "Nothing." He asked, "Want to go fishing?" Well, now. Not really. That's what I thought. Because I don't really like fishing. But what I said was, "Sure dad. I'm not doing anything."
So Sunday morning I woke up at 9:40 a.m. and got ready to go fishing with my dad. It didn't take a lot of preparation. I basically didn't shower, put on some sunscreen, and wore some clothes. At 10 o'clock, I hopped into my dad's Yukon and tried not to feel motion-sick as he drove down to the dock. My dad is THE worst driver in the world. It's a miracle he still has his license. He's gotten so many speeding tickets he's now super paranoid about getting pulled over, so he goes at a 45 mph crawl on busy highways while managing to accelerate and brake, accelerate and brake, every twenty seconds. It was a short drive so I made it without getting too nauseous. Usually if we're going anywhere longer than a half-hour drive I wheedle my dad into letting me take the wheel.
Anyway, so we went fishing. It's about an hour and a half, maybe two, to go down the Hudson river out to the bay. It's a pretty little journey - we went through the Palisades, under the George Washington Bridge, and past Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statute of Liberty. But there was a lot of debris in the water that day, which was a bit nerve-wracking for me. I was piloting the boat and I don't like seeing a lot of things float around, because I get nervous about hitting a big log or something.
So we drove out until we hit open ocean. My dad cut up these huge clams to use as bait, and then he pulled out these long, thick, nasty live worms. They were so gross. When he put the worms on the fish hooks they bled all over the place. YRCH.
We didn't have much luck with the fishing. My dad kept moving the boat around but all we caught was a shark. It was a little one, maybe two feet long, but it was still a shark. My dad brought it onto the boat to take the barbs out of its mouth. Then he stabbed the shark! I was horrified. I asked why he didn't just throw the shark back without killing it and he said because the shark would die anyway because his mouth was all mangled and also because the shark would keep going after the bait. That didn't make much sense to me but I don't argue with a man wielding a big knife who just butchered a shark.
After the shark incident my dad decided to drive out a little further, to get away from the bad shark karma, I guess. When my dad dropped anchor I started to feel a little ill. The boat kept swaying side to side, side to side. I hardly ever get seasick, but I was having a little bit of a rough time. But I didn't say anything. We set up the fishing rods and I went to the little kitcheonette to make ramen noodles for my dad and myself for lunch. As I was watching the pot waiting for it to come to a boil, I put my finger in my mouth to chew my nail. I know, it's a bad habit. When I did I tasted clam. Not good clam, but fish-bait clam. I felt extremely nauseated, promptly ran upstairs to the back deck, and projectile-vomited the sweet potato I had eaten for breakfast. (Yes, Koreans eat potato for breakfast. They also eat corn on the cob for breakfast.) I'm not exaggerating there. The vomit seriously projected like five feet horizontally. Thank God I was in the middle of the ocean on the boat and not, say, on the 6 train at rush hour, otherwise a lot of people might have been mad.
My dad saw me throw up and promptly took down the fishing rods and said we had to go back. I felt really bad because we had just spent three hours getting to where we were so he could fish and said, "No, no, I feel much better now." But he was having none of it. Just as well, I still felt a little sick, so I just went down to the bunk to lie down for an hour. When I got up we were by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and there were a lot of boats around so my dad wouldn't let me drive. But when we got a bit more upriver past the big ports there was much less traffic so he let me drive. I like driving the boat so overall I had fun. But I felt really bad for my dad. My poor dad. He hardly got to do any fishing at all. But then later after we got home my mom told me my dad had told her I had gotten really weak because I got sick on the boat and I was mad that he called me weak and I ddn't feel bad anymore.
Part 2. Birthday
I was really tired after all the boating but I'm a trouper so I went out that night for my friend Jocelin's birthday. We went to Bar 89 and Lotus. Bar 89 was once a trendy hotspot but I'm not sure if it is anymore. It has weird bathrooms. They are unisex and they have transparent stalls and you think, "Ohmygod everyone is going to see me pee." But then once you actually go into the stall and lock the door the stall turns opaque. Not completely but someone would have to try really hard to see you pee, and they would only see a vague outline of you anyway.
After that we went to Lotus, which is a club in the Meatpacking District. I hate clubs but I also love clubs. I hate them because I hate the way they make you stand on line while some overgrown frat boy who's pretending to be Italian or something (meanwhile he's in a wrinkled suit) stares you up and down and decides whether to let you into the club. The stupid doorman decided my friends and I weren't cute enough to get in for free, so we had to pay $10. We were pretty insulted. But I overheard some other girls complaining that they had to pay $20, so we decided not to be too bitter about it. I also hate the crowd most of the time. Although we did see Patrick Swayze at the club. We got all excited and talked about Dirty Dancing. And that's why I do love clubs, because I love dancing. My boyfriend absolutely hates clubs like Lotus, and so I haven't been to any in a really long time, but once I was there I had a really good time. I had forgotten how much I love dancing.
All in all it was a good Sunday.
So sometime last week I straggled home from after-work drinks at about 11:30 p.m. I was feeling guilty because I hadn't been home any time before 11 p.m. or so since, like, forever. I always mean to spend time with my family but then I don't, because coworkers want to go out for drinks (and lawyers want to drink A LOT - I can attest to that fact even though I'm not a lawyer yet), or because I want to go see my boyfriend, or because I have plans with a girlfriend. And then even if I do get home early by some miracle of life I usually just end up giving my parents a sullen hello, getting shifty-eyed, and stomping straight up to my room where I smoke weed and look at porn all night. Just kidding.
Anyway, I was feeling guilty for coming home late again. (That was the last relevant thing I said. Late in my house is defined as after my grandma goes to sleep. That also is not really relevant.) My dad looked up from his newspaper and asked me what I was doing on Sunday. "Um, what time Sunday?" I asked, because I had plans to go out on Sunday night for my girlfriend Jocelin's birthday. He said, "Sunday during the day." I said, "Nothing." He asked, "Want to go fishing?" Well, now. Not really. That's what I thought. Because I don't really like fishing. But what I said was, "Sure dad. I'm not doing anything."
So Sunday morning I woke up at 9:40 a.m. and got ready to go fishing with my dad. It didn't take a lot of preparation. I basically didn't shower, put on some sunscreen, and wore some clothes. At 10 o'clock, I hopped into my dad's Yukon and tried not to feel motion-sick as he drove down to the dock. My dad is THE worst driver in the world. It's a miracle he still has his license. He's gotten so many speeding tickets he's now super paranoid about getting pulled over, so he goes at a 45 mph crawl on busy highways while managing to accelerate and brake, accelerate and brake, every twenty seconds. It was a short drive so I made it without getting too nauseous. Usually if we're going anywhere longer than a half-hour drive I wheedle my dad into letting me take the wheel.
Anyway, so we went fishing. It's about an hour and a half, maybe two, to go down the Hudson river out to the bay. It's a pretty little journey - we went through the Palisades, under the George Washington Bridge, and past Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statute of Liberty. But there was a lot of debris in the water that day, which was a bit nerve-wracking for me. I was piloting the boat and I don't like seeing a lot of things float around, because I get nervous about hitting a big log or something.
So we drove out until we hit open ocean. My dad cut up these huge clams to use as bait, and then he pulled out these long, thick, nasty live worms. They were so gross. When he put the worms on the fish hooks they bled all over the place. YRCH.
We didn't have much luck with the fishing. My dad kept moving the boat around but all we caught was a shark. It was a little one, maybe two feet long, but it was still a shark. My dad brought it onto the boat to take the barbs out of its mouth. Then he stabbed the shark! I was horrified. I asked why he didn't just throw the shark back without killing it and he said because the shark would die anyway because his mouth was all mangled and also because the shark would keep going after the bait. That didn't make much sense to me but I don't argue with a man wielding a big knife who just butchered a shark.
After the shark incident my dad decided to drive out a little further, to get away from the bad shark karma, I guess. When my dad dropped anchor I started to feel a little ill. The boat kept swaying side to side, side to side. I hardly ever get seasick, but I was having a little bit of a rough time. But I didn't say anything. We set up the fishing rods and I went to the little kitcheonette to make ramen noodles for my dad and myself for lunch. As I was watching the pot waiting for it to come to a boil, I put my finger in my mouth to chew my nail. I know, it's a bad habit. When I did I tasted clam. Not good clam, but fish-bait clam. I felt extremely nauseated, promptly ran upstairs to the back deck, and projectile-vomited the sweet potato I had eaten for breakfast. (Yes, Koreans eat potato for breakfast. They also eat corn on the cob for breakfast.) I'm not exaggerating there. The vomit seriously projected like five feet horizontally. Thank God I was in the middle of the ocean on the boat and not, say, on the 6 train at rush hour, otherwise a lot of people might have been mad.
My dad saw me throw up and promptly took down the fishing rods and said we had to go back. I felt really bad because we had just spent three hours getting to where we were so he could fish and said, "No, no, I feel much better now." But he was having none of it. Just as well, I still felt a little sick, so I just went down to the bunk to lie down for an hour. When I got up we were by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and there were a lot of boats around so my dad wouldn't let me drive. But when we got a bit more upriver past the big ports there was much less traffic so he let me drive. I like driving the boat so overall I had fun. But I felt really bad for my dad. My poor dad. He hardly got to do any fishing at all. But then later after we got home my mom told me my dad had told her I had gotten really weak because I got sick on the boat and I was mad that he called me weak and I ddn't feel bad anymore.
Part 2. Birthday
I was really tired after all the boating but I'm a trouper so I went out that night for my friend Jocelin's birthday. We went to Bar 89 and Lotus. Bar 89 was once a trendy hotspot but I'm not sure if it is anymore. It has weird bathrooms. They are unisex and they have transparent stalls and you think, "Ohmygod everyone is going to see me pee." But then once you actually go into the stall and lock the door the stall turns opaque. Not completely but someone would have to try really hard to see you pee, and they would only see a vague outline of you anyway.
After that we went to Lotus, which is a club in the Meatpacking District. I hate clubs but I also love clubs. I hate them because I hate the way they make you stand on line while some overgrown frat boy who's pretending to be Italian or something (meanwhile he's in a wrinkled suit) stares you up and down and decides whether to let you into the club. The stupid doorman decided my friends and I weren't cute enough to get in for free, so we had to pay $10. We were pretty insulted. But I overheard some other girls complaining that they had to pay $20, so we decided not to be too bitter about it. I also hate the crowd most of the time. Although we did see Patrick Swayze at the club. We got all excited and talked about Dirty Dancing. And that's why I do love clubs, because I love dancing. My boyfriend absolutely hates clubs like Lotus, and so I haven't been to any in a really long time, but once I was there I had a really good time. I had forgotten how much I love dancing.
All in all it was a good Sunday.
posted by J. at 11:42 PM
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