So, 29 again... No, seriously – I’m still 29! Forget that 30th birthday update I promised. See, I made the mistake of heading off on holiday with my brother for lack of a more suitable companion, which turned out to be perfect preparation for being (fingers crossed, someday) unhappily married. And as he made almost zero effort to mark my big day, I figure I get a free pass.
Yep, we must have looked like ‘that’ couple... Shared surname, but we’re checking we’ve got separate beds booked the moment we check into the hotel. Sitting in silence at either side of the table, masticating. Miserable. No sex, which kinda goes without saying – in fact, I feel pretty weird to have pointed that out to you, but, dammit, it’s a good analogy so I’m going with it!
I mean, sure, we love and occasionally even like each other on some level – usually when we’re drinking or a close relation has died. But aside from that our God-given mission is to provoke and generally piss off our worser half by being as inconsiderate and uncaring as we can be. My brother, for instance, believes conversation and mutually enjoyable activities to be optional on even a day as delicate as my hitting the big 3-0. So, having tearily hit 30 in a toilet UK time (as mentioned in my last post) I woke up Officially Old in New York to my brother grunting “happy birthday” from his bed before dragging me off on a ‘surprise’ trip to... An aircraft museum. His treat. I kid you not.
Now, to be fair, this was the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, which is pretty frikkin’ cool, even for a girl. You get to go inside a Cold War submarine and everything! But, see, my role in this unhappy marriage is to sulk. And sometimes cry. But claim in a high-pitched, whiney voice that,“I’m fine, it’s fine, absolutely fine, whatever you want to do is fine,” and so on and so forth. Until I cry again.
So after stomping around this fuck-off big boat for a few hours, I was ready to eat. And drink. “I’m not really all that hungry,” my beloved brother remarked. “It’s too hot to eat. Maybe we should just get a McDonald’s.” At which point I vowed to never – ever! – go on holiday with him again. And told him in no uncertain terms I would not be dining at a McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway or Wendy’s or whatever else unremarkable eatery he had in mind on my 30th birthday of all days and was very far from fine. So together we stomped off to the Meatpacking District, stopping at every bar we could find en route to drink until we forgot why we were so hacked off with each other in the first place.
But the Big Apple is just so darn big, isn’t it? And he insisted on us walking everywhere, the bastard. My feet are still in bits... So, in spite of my best efforts, I pretty much metabolised every last drop of alcohol as we traipsed from one block to the next in the blistering heat. But I was feeling chipper and looking forward to ‘getting my drink on’ once I’d got a good meal down me.
And then it started to rain. Boy, did it rain! New York does not do things by half! Thunder, lightening. Rain, rain, rain, rain. We like to think we know rain back in Blighty, but that rain – it was like having a bath-full of water chucked over your head. We were soaked and in no fit state to go to some trendy bar. So it was back to the hotel for us, in theory to spruce ourselves up for my big night out. But then I cracked open the bottle of red wine sitting atop the mini-bar and... And before I knew it we were eating a burger because I sorta had to admit it was too hot to eat (a Breslin Burger ordered from Ace Hotel room service I hasten to add, possibly the best burger I’ve ever eaten).
But then my brother passed out with the booze he hadn’t burned off and the jet-lag he definitely didn’t have. Out. For. The. Count. So that was that. As we’d kind of had our mini-bar key confiscated earlier in the week for reasons I’ll explain in Thursday’s finale, I necked a couple of the Diazepam I’d been prescribed for the plane for wont of something more intoxicating and polished off the last of the red wine while watching CNN. Only to wake up a couple of hours later having spilled that last half glass all over my pyjamas and the white linen.
Hardly fitting behaviour for a woman of 30. Which is why I’m remaining 29 until further notice.
So as we’re in need of a dessert to round-off the roast dinner from last post, I’ve decided to make a pecan pie in tribute to all the delicious American specialities I failed to devour while in New York...
Thanks (I think!) to Bex for the illustration - we don't really look like that! Xxx
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