Photo Essay #1: Of Your Average Mid-Week, Mini Road Trip to NYC.

A and I needed to go to NY for some shopping, so we decided to go spend the night with our friend K in the process. K has a nice, big apartment in the village that she has to give up at the end of the month, so we wanted to take advantage. Here's the things that should usually happen on such a road trip:

1. wake up early.


2. find the money you've been putting away, and take alot of it.


3. say goodbye to roommate's gun-loving dog.


4. check to make sure driving conditions will be optimal.


5. hire a taxi to take you 2 miles out of your way, thus nullifying the point of cabbing instead of metroing. tip cabbie $1 instead of usual $5. realize it doesn't matter either way.


6. pick up rental car. when woman at counter says, "chevy monte carlo okay?" say "no." unless you want to drive around a big, unweildy family sedan in a snowy, icy new york city for two days. in that case, say "yes."


7. get lost in your own city on way out of town. waste 20 minutes.


8. drive half-asleep in white-out conditions. only kind of crash once.


9. have passenger take picture of otherwise uninteresting semi while passing at 60mph.


10. miraculously arrive at tunnel to manhattan within 5 hours of leaving. make sure car is completely encased in mixture of snow, salt, and nearly opaque film. also make sure car has no wiper fluid. this is key.

11. park. pay $20 because parking on the street in NY is scary, impossible and the tickets are big. they tow their cars to canada, and make you drive there to pick them up. if you don't have a second car, you're just out of luck. so pay $20. proceed to nearest place with something warm and a bathroom. pay for the warm thing and use the bathroom. bonus: the warm thing is delicious.

12. take picture of gritty, urban street art.

13. take picture of gritty, urban street art made by affluent DC-area teen.

14. shop for an hour, until extremities begin to separate from limbs. join friend for dinner in heated establishment.


15. go to bar. drink delicious domestic beer.


16. go to second bar. look for some semblance of a hop in any beer. fail. drink guinness.

17. run into sideshow performer albert cadabra, who is drunk off free wine at burlesque show in basement. discuss things. forget to take picture with him. wait until he comes back upstairs. take picture with him. he is a seasoned picture-taking professional.


18. go to sleep earlier than you have gone to sleep in six months. wake up at usual time. shop at expensive stores with unexpensive-sounding names. make comments your parents would make about the prices of things. purchase things anyway.


19. sit in traffic. just cuz.


20. leave. take picture while sitting in traffic of city through grime-covered window.


21. stage photo while driving. make sure to get friend asleep in back seat, and to make stupid face.

22. figure out best way to take picture of great sunset while driving. change settings numerous times until figuring it out. switch lanes three times while doing so, accidentally. take picture. go home. go see shortstack.