March had been such a busy month for Wayne and I that Wayne decided that we should take a vacation together. So, ostensibly to celebrate my birthday, we pretty much on the spur of the moment made plans to go to New York for a long weekend.
We both arranged the time off from our respective jobs and Wayne contacted his cousin David who lived there to get a free place to stay. Other than that, it was just packing our bags and heading down to the train station to spend some much needed fun time in the Big Apple.
This trip was really an opportunity for us to get to know one another a bit more since we had just a few months ago gone from mere acquaintances with a mutual friend in common (as well as failed former blind daters hooked up by said mutual friend Linda) to roommates signing a lease together in a new apartment we sought out.
When we arrived at Penn Station cousin David was waiting at our platform for us. After the initial greetings we went up to street level, hopped in a cab and made our way to David's rented brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. David shared the gorgeous three-story, four bedroom house with three other professional gay men. Oh yeah, did I mention David was family?
Wayne and I shared the sleeper sofa in the living room. No problem. We had slept in the same bed together many nights (platonic of course) when he lived in his small loft apartment in South Providence. We'd go out clubbing together and so I wouldn't need to drive all the way up to my apartment in Woonsocket, I slept with Wayne.
Actually throughout the course of our stay with David, other than David himself, we hardly saw either of his other roommates since they all had such busy schedules. Wayne even remarked to me how they were so separate from one another, cooking their own segregated food and doing their own thing with their own separate groups of friends. Wayne lamented the fact that they didn't even have a TV in the living room they could all gather cozily in front of with a big bowl of popcorn for movie nights (like Wayne and I did in our new home). Wayne's concept of what an ideal roommate relationship was seemed very different from David's.
Wayne expressed gratitude that at least we hung out with each other in our apartment frequently and shared almost everything. Heck, during this point of our what would be two years as roommates, we were even shopping for groceries together, splitting the expense and making meals that were shared. Yes, for all intents and purposes, it was like we were a married couple...but without the sex and romance.
The next day we did the usual Empire State Building thing and puttered around Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. David worked uptown as a copy writer for a major high-end cosmetic company on Fifth Avenue so Wayne called him at work around 6:00 or so. He gave directions to his nearby office building and we met him there since he told us he wanted to take us for a unique New York dining experience.
We got in a cab and made our way to the heart of Chinatown. There we popped into one of David's favorite eateries for an authentic Dim Sum experience. Dim Sum was not available at any local Chinese restaurants in Rhode Island so we reveled in the treat. David even instructed us in the proper way to order using the appropriate available cards and he even spoke a little Mandarin with the very friendly and energetic wait staff.
After we were quite full, we caught another cab and went out to check out the night scene. It was still early (ie: before midnight) so rather than show up so pathetically early at a cruise bar or dance club, we went to a bar called "Eighty Eights". This place was very different. Basically a cramped piano bar heavily into an immersive sing along atmosphere. And all the songs were show tunes. I loved the music and the instant camaraderie but not being one to remember the lyrics to many songs, I felt a bit left out as I "faked it" and pretended I knew what I was singing. Wayne, and his ear for lyrics and David and his love of Broadway musicals had no problem keeping up. The place wasn't stated to be a "gay" bar per se, but the theme naturally lent itself to an almost all gay crowd.
After a few hours there we hit up another bar, though not touted as exclusively "gay", catering to a very diverse and open-minded crowd, "Splash". A reported favorite of Madonna's, Splash featured a throbbing laser lit dance floor packed with shirtless boys of all orientations (and a few hot girls if that was your thing) all surrounding a fully-exposed glass brick and neon light illuminated set of shower stalls spraying hot water over the muscle-bound near-naked go go boys. Now this was more like it!
We got back to David's house almost as the sun was coming up and would be sleeping 'till the early afternoon the next day nursing our hangovers. Wayne and I basically lounged away the afternoon, but before long we were off again. We both wanted to make it to see a Broadway show and though I opted for something newer like the recently acclaimed new show "Rent", Wayne wanted to see a musical he'd been dying to see for years. To me though, it seemed like a lame choice and it had been around for so long that almost everyone knew its basic plot and all of the more popular songs. But Wayne was quite insistent (in a nice way).
So yup, you guessed it, we went to see "Cats".
Meow.
I think I actually nodded off somewhere in the middle. The theater was only a quarter-filled and most were your typical suburbanite middle-aged housewife types.
Meow, meow.
And to make matters even worse, the players flopped lazily around in their moth-eaten cat costumes and seemed like they were "totally phoning it in".
Meow, meow, meow.
The trip continued on pretty much uneventfully for a day or two more. We enjoyed more of the sights, sounds, tastes and ultimately the smells that is New York. The trip taught us a lot about each other and it was through some of these revelations (like Wayne's near-OCD behavior and my nascent-yet-increasingly-obvious issues with alcohol) that we were better prepared for the bumpy ride soon to come ahead.
We both arranged the time off from our respective jobs and Wayne contacted his cousin David who lived there to get a free place to stay. Other than that, it was just packing our bags and heading down to the train station to spend some much needed fun time in the Big Apple.
This trip was really an opportunity for us to get to know one another a bit more since we had just a few months ago gone from mere acquaintances with a mutual friend in common (as well as failed former blind daters hooked up by said mutual friend Linda) to roommates signing a lease together in a new apartment we sought out.
When we arrived at Penn Station cousin David was waiting at our platform for us. After the initial greetings we went up to street level, hopped in a cab and made our way to David's rented brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. David shared the gorgeous three-story, four bedroom house with three other professional gay men. Oh yeah, did I mention David was family?
Wayne and I shared the sleeper sofa in the living room. No problem. We had slept in the same bed together many nights (platonic of course) when he lived in his small loft apartment in South Providence. We'd go out clubbing together and so I wouldn't need to drive all the way up to my apartment in Woonsocket, I slept with Wayne.
Actually throughout the course of our stay with David, other than David himself, we hardly saw either of his other roommates since they all had such busy schedules. Wayne even remarked to me how they were so separate from one another, cooking their own segregated food and doing their own thing with their own separate groups of friends. Wayne lamented the fact that they didn't even have a TV in the living room they could all gather cozily in front of with a big bowl of popcorn for movie nights (like Wayne and I did in our new home). Wayne's concept of what an ideal roommate relationship was seemed very different from David's.
Wayne expressed gratitude that at least we hung out with each other in our apartment frequently and shared almost everything. Heck, during this point of our what would be two years as roommates, we were even shopping for groceries together, splitting the expense and making meals that were shared. Yes, for all intents and purposes, it was like we were a married couple...but without the sex and romance.
The next day we did the usual Empire State Building thing and puttered around Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. David worked uptown as a copy writer for a major high-end cosmetic company on Fifth Avenue so Wayne called him at work around 6:00 or so. He gave directions to his nearby office building and we met him there since he told us he wanted to take us for a unique New York dining experience.
We got in a cab and made our way to the heart of Chinatown. There we popped into one of David's favorite eateries for an authentic Dim Sum experience. Dim Sum was not available at any local Chinese restaurants in Rhode Island so we reveled in the treat. David even instructed us in the proper way to order using the appropriate available cards and he even spoke a little Mandarin with the very friendly and energetic wait staff.
After we were quite full, we caught another cab and went out to check out the night scene. It was still early (ie: before midnight) so rather than show up so pathetically early at a cruise bar or dance club, we went to a bar called "Eighty Eights". This place was very different. Basically a cramped piano bar heavily into an immersive sing along atmosphere. And all the songs were show tunes. I loved the music and the instant camaraderie but not being one to remember the lyrics to many songs, I felt a bit left out as I "faked it" and pretended I knew what I was singing. Wayne, and his ear for lyrics and David and his love of Broadway musicals had no problem keeping up. The place wasn't stated to be a "gay" bar per se, but the theme naturally lent itself to an almost all gay crowd.
After a few hours there we hit up another bar, though not touted as exclusively "gay", catering to a very diverse and open-minded crowd, "Splash". A reported favorite of Madonna's, Splash featured a throbbing laser lit dance floor packed with shirtless boys of all orientations (and a few hot girls if that was your thing) all surrounding a fully-exposed glass brick and neon light illuminated set of shower stalls spraying hot water over the muscle-bound near-naked go go boys. Now this was more like it!
We got back to David's house almost as the sun was coming up and would be sleeping 'till the early afternoon the next day nursing our hangovers. Wayne and I basically lounged away the afternoon, but before long we were off again. We both wanted to make it to see a Broadway show and though I opted for something newer like the recently acclaimed new show "Rent", Wayne wanted to see a musical he'd been dying to see for years. To me though, it seemed like a lame choice and it had been around for so long that almost everyone knew its basic plot and all of the more popular songs. But Wayne was quite insistent (in a nice way).
So yup, you guessed it, we went to see "Cats".
Meow.
I think I actually nodded off somewhere in the middle. The theater was only a quarter-filled and most were your typical suburbanite middle-aged housewife types.
Meow, meow.
And to make matters even worse, the players flopped lazily around in their moth-eaten cat costumes and seemed like they were "totally phoning it in".
Meow, meow, meow.
The trip continued on pretty much uneventfully for a day or two more. We enjoyed more of the sights, sounds, tastes and ultimately the smells that is New York. The trip taught us a lot about each other and it was through some of these revelations (like Wayne's near-OCD behavior and my nascent-yet-increasingly-obvious issues with alcohol) that we were better prepared for the bumpy ride soon to come ahead.