Damon and I have been married for one year. Last July, up in the mountains of north Georgia, we were with all our friends and feeling optimistic about life in general.
It’s been a beautiful year, everything I could have hoped for. Which is not to say that we haven’t fought; haven’t wanted to occassionally do our worst to each other, hide the evidence and run for Panama.
Yesterday we celebrated staying on the right side of the law. Damon knows a thing or two about women, and scored big points by presenting me with a beauty of a red and white dress I’d amired in a boutique window weeks ago. It’s a strapless sundress built for maximum swirl.
I gave him a NY-themed gift. First was a CD compilation of musicians from our neighborhood, second was the DVD of Batman Begins (to commemorate the two times hopeful tourists have tentatively asked him if he’s Christian Bale. Which is hilarious because, really, he doesn’t look like Christian Bale) and third is a big, beautiful photo of the Flatiron building, taken in the ’30s from the top of a tour bus. That both celebrates a gorgeous building and commemorates our disasterous tourist bus trip with my Mom and Jerry.
Happy with our presents, I threw on my new dress and we headed for Coney Island. And here’s what I’ve learned. Coney Island is fun, but not as much fun when it’s 90 degrees out. Next time we will go at night. But we did have a good time. I got one of the world’s finest caramel apples and happily watched Damon ride scary rides.
The best part of the rides is the operator patter. They’ve all got mics and they seem to enjoy the theater. So while the cars all go whizzing by every which way on, say, the Break Dance ride you hear this booming voice announcing things like, “Shorty in the pink had better hold on to that bar.” and “Oh, she mad. She don’t like this ride at all.” All of Coney Island has become a perfect marriage of carny and hip hop. The Polar Express features the classic polar bears illustrations, but in this case they’re wearing hoodies and hanging out with Tupac.
I also loved the guy on the boardwalk yelling: “Shoot the freak! When you come to Coney Island you got to eat a hot dog. You got to ride the Cyclone. And you got to shoot the freak in his freaking face. He’s a freak. He deserves to be shot. You don’t shoot him, he don’t eat!”
The Freak, by the way, is just some guy in a hockey mask and football pads. I guess the silly dance is what earns him his title.
Once I’d eaten everything that wasn’t nailed down and Damon had been flung far and wide by every ride in the park we headed back to Times Square to catch The Da Vinci Code. This entry is already pretty long and I won’t bore anyone who happens to still be reading with a review. We did enjoy ourselves, though. And Damon got to restore balance to the universe, which is important to him. The women behind us in the ticket queue, after repeated tries to cut around us (which were aggressively blocked by me) had already forced their way in front of the guy who was behind us, and then was behind them. So Damon made a big production of turning around and saying in full voice to the guy, “I think you’ve lost your place in line. Why don’t you come get in front of us?” I’m sure the women were not remotely chagrined, but the guy seemed to feel better.
After the movie we capped our time out with a big sushi dinner. I wish I had a nice nigiri platter right now.
So we staggered home, a little bit sunburned, smelling like coconut and promising to try to do at least as well this coming year.
jaysaint 