a graveyard, a prison, and too much garlic

I saw Jessie Marshall on Thursday, and we wandered around Hoboken and New York chatting. We kept trying to sit down in bars, but then the music would get turned up so loud we couldn't hear ourselves, so we'd move on. It happened like 5 times, and I can't explain why. I actually turned around at the last bar and shouted in the general direction of the wait staff: "IS IT ME?!?". We also took the worst pairs-portrait in history. I'm not going to show it to you, but it's *worse* than this one:



Then, the INYI* took over and Alec & I were off to The City of Brotherly Love to visit his sister Galen and her beau, Duane. I took this charming picture of Alec & Galen:



As thanks, Galen & Duane took us on a walk by a church with a really old graveyard at night. We found a gate unlocked, went inside, and I convinced them all to lay down around a gravestone, then took my sweet time focusing my camera and turning off the flash, and framing the shot while they all lay, as you see them here, becoming completely creeped out:





Then a bunch of zombies ate them. I performed a zombie-repelling ritual:





We all ate ice cream from Ben & Jerry's. Alec and I are going to Vermont this weekend, so we're going to go to the B&J factory and do a comparison: just how much flavor gets lost while shipping?

After the creepy graveyard thing, we figured we'd do something a little more low-key, so we went to a ruined 19th-century prison: Eastern State Penitentiary.

The story here is that some genius thought prison ought to be totally solitary time with God, so they built a prison designed to keep the prisoners completely separated. They weren't allowed to talk to anyone except the chaplain, and their food was given to them through little holes in the wall. The place had modern plumbing before the White House. Here I am making use of it- note how impressed the passer-by is:



Anyway, they eventually turned it into a more normal prison because it was too expensive to run and the tenants were ending up crazy, so they started making multiple-story halls that were crazy creepy & gothic and allowing the prisoners to interact.



As you can see, the place eventually started to fall apart. Then it got taken over by feral cats. There was some weird art exhibit there referencing the years the penitentiary was falling into ruin and was completely full of cats- there were 39 white statues of cats placed around the area. I stopped reading all the historical information and started hunting the cats. I took pictures of 38 different white cats around the place, and then we had to go.



Weird, huh?

Then we went to visit Alec & Galen's aging grandmother, who they call Gaga. I'd met Gaga in college on a road trip with Alec, and had apparently been wearing torn jeans. She told me she remembered me and that my pants looked better. Then Gaga had some advice for Alec:
In response to Alec's plans to attend art school in the fall- "People can go to school til they're 100, it's just a way to avoid getting a real job."
Out of the blue- "It's very nice to see you, but I don't much care for your beard."

We walked back to Galen's place through a beautiful park, where a bunch of footbridges had been destroyed by flooding this year. I guess they got all of Portland's rain in Philly this winter!

We had breakfast at a very special restaurant on Sunday and then Galen & Duane dropped us at the train station.

Alec got irritated at some guy who nagged us for money and then complained when we didn't help him, so Alec exclaimed, "It's not my responsibility to pay for your train ticket!" Which made me giggle. The same guy came up and asked us for money again like 15 minutes later (not recognizing us) and Alec and I turned our head to our books and said "sorry." perfectly in sync. The guy was creeped out by this and left us alone.

The last few days have been primarily uneventful dodging around in New York with Kelly and Alec. Then, last night, we ordered Alec a new computer on the Internet at like 2 am. Tomorrow we go to see Weezer in concert.

Oh, one more funny story. I was up at 2 am and everyone else in the apartment had gone to sleep. I needed to call someone on the west coast to talk, so I went up to the roof where I wouldn't disturb anyone.

Now, the last time I stayed in this apartment (many moons ago), I was told how to get up to the roof- it's just one more floor up on the fire escape and then over the lip, and there's a pretty good view. Since the last time I was here, the person who showed me this trick has moved out. Apparently, no one does this anymore. So, after 15 minutes on the roof I came down the fire escape to discover that someone had awoken, noticed the open window grate, and locked it closed.

I tapped on the window to see if anyone was still awake. nope.

So, I did what seemed logical. I had keys to the apartment in my pocket, so I climbed down the fire escape- I was only on the 6th floor, and I figured I could reach the ground, walk around front, and let myself in.

By the time I reached the third story on the fire escape I could see that it let out into an enclosed alley- the building on one side (no door apparent), a brick wall opposite, and barbed-wire fences on either end. Great, if there's a fire we can escape to this enclosed alley where flaming chunks of building can fall on us.

I climbed back up to the sixth-floor window and pulled out the cell phone, called Kelly's cell, woke her up, and asked her to let me in. The story was told around the house the next day and everyone laughed at me.

gcb

*'Insane New York Itinerary' - see last post!