Pepper Spray, Scrabble, Newsletters and Sundays Off

Thursday evening, I was ordering a pint at Fat Cat – a sprawling basement rec room/jazz bar in the West Village – when all of a sudden, everyone started coughing uncontrollably. At first I thought it was only me with the pesky piece of fluff in my throat, but then Meredith caught the bug, others too and soon enough the words ‘pepper spray’ were tentatively making their way through the heavy air. Between hacking coughs, we looked around us, perplexed, searching for the pepper spray perpetrator, when a girl behind the bar said, “Sorry guys someone accidentally sprayed pepper spray.”

Accidentally?

Unconsciously I think, we all turned and stared at her accusingly – our eyes wide in disbelief, our gazes wavering only upon recoil from a coughing fit. She quickly understood that we had, mob-like, collectively placed the blame for the mishap on her and countered, “It wasn’t me. But someone behind the bar sprayed it accidentally.” Alrighty then. Stranger things have happened.

Mystery solved, Meredith and I grabbed our drinks and Scrabble pieces, heading away from the pepper and towards the band and an unclaimed, plastic-protected Scrabble board. The plan was to get in a quick game before heading over to Le Poisson Rouge for a Budos Band show at 11pm. (If you’ve ever played Scrabble with me, you know that it’s not in me to play ‘a quick game’ or even a ‘moderately paced game’ of Scrabble. For every turn, I like to come up with at least three options – if not more – and play only the highest scoring word once I’ve exhausted all letter combination possibilities. That’s me – thorough to a T).

We had managed a measly two words, when our party of two expanded to four, and we chucked the letters back in the bag for Round 2. In the midst of all this, I learned that before meeting at Fat Cat at 9:30, Meredith had gone from work to The Strand, where she listened to 20 minutes of Jonah Lehrer’s talk on decision-making before going to get her hair cut at 7:30, from which she headed to a cafe to catch up on her New York Magazine reading – she was falling behind in her subscription. Luci – after gutting fish all morning at chef school – went to one of two internships she’s currently juggling (Time Out and Eater.com), then to an art show with boyfriend Krystian and Rice to Riches for a sugar rush before joining us for what she thought was going to be Ping Pong but ended up being Scrabble at Fat Cat (which is conveniently located literally next door to her apartment). Phew.

Between words, Meredith triumphantly offered us the New York Mag she’d just finished with. I was tempted, but being behind on my own subscription to The New Yorker, hesitantly declined. Luci – who gets New York Magazine at home as well – chimed in that she too was behind, so much so that she’d decided to stop getting the newspaper delivered. “It’s impossible to read a weekly magazine, a daily newspaper and still find time to read a book.” Too true. Enter the NY Times Weekender.

When I came back to New York at the end of the summer, I quickly realized that everyone who was in the know subscribed to email newsletters galore. Travel deal newsletters, new eatery newsletters, what’s new in French Manhattan newsletters, what’s free in NY newsletters, best book newsletters and untold others. I signed up for a few myself – but mostly as a result of jobs I was applying to – UrbanDaddy and Travelzoo for example. But now I too understand that the best way to keep on top of everything that’s happening in this on-speed city is to open up my inbox to all and sundry. Don’t trust yourself to have the time to go looking for the latest info – sign up to have it find you.

The more newsletters you receive, the more you’ll have to read (on top of your magazine+newspaper+book+websites of choice). You’ll also have more to do, be (or at least feel) more in touch with the pulse of the city and use most or all of the following to describe the kind of life you lead:  exciting, frenetic, dynamic, hectic, educational, interesting, post modern, overwhelming, fun, overscheduled, stimulating, drunken, crazy, over the top, memorable, story-worthy. You will also live with the comfort of knowing that when you don’t take advantage of something that’s at your fingertips, it’s not because you simply don’t know about it, but rather because you choose – wittingly – to opt out.

More often than not I feel completely inundated by this age of too much information, which is why after a week that reads something like Meredith’s and Luci’s Thursdays (both are avid newsletter subscribers), I’ve opted to spend this Sunday at home – sleeping in, catching up, cleaning a bit and completely cut off from the madding crowds and their misuse of pepper spray. A Sunday as leisurely as a three-hour game of Scrabble.

Happy March!