My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [61]
I whiled away much of my time last year with the sea lions, but I was still able to marvel at the architecture and ogle bridges and make awkward conversation with cabdrivers on how I’d sure hate to be driving a stick shift around here!119 And although I chose not to sport the fanny-pack-socks-sandals-T-shirt-of-where-we-currently-are-and-woven-straw-hats uniform made popular by so many of the city’s other visitors, I’ll admit to consuming more than my fair share of tourist chow, such as corn dogs, wine, corn dogs, chocolate, corn dogs, sourdough bread bowls, and corn dogs.
Having no obligations until six p.m. feels like a gift; I don’t want to piss it away seeking out the perfect nitrate on a stick. I need to continue my Jenaissance. Plus, if I want to experience a bunch of fat, surly, ungrateful creatures jockeying for position, I can watch my cats duke it out over the sunny spot on the ottoman.120
I’m ready to have an adventure, so I instruct the cabdriver to take me to Chinatown. Recently, I went to a book club and spoke with a woman who’d gone to a tea-tasting workshop, where she learned all sorts of obscure facts like leaf origins and how to brew the perfect cup. She explained that I should never, ever buy bagged tea because those are the pieces that aren’t big enough/good enough to sell as loose tea.
What really sparked my interest was her story about learning the ritual of tea service. I paid special attention because I remembered in cycle three of America’s Next Top Model, the models were in Japan and Tyra made them do a tea-service challenge. Which, by the way, was bullshit, because what does modeling have to do with serving tea?121 Hopeful model Yaya—who I HATED—won that competition and got all smug about it, and for a minute I thought my girl Eva wasn’t going to win. Thus I pledged to myself to take any opportunity to learn a traditional tea service because even though I may be fat and forty, in my mind these factors do not necessarily prevent me from being on ANTM. So, if Miss Tyra’s basing top-model decisions on who best doles out the Darjeeling, I’m a shoo-in.122 Ergo, Chinatown.
Coincidentally, this isn’t the first instance of reality TV coaxing me into action. When I finally try out for Survivor I’m not going to be that asshole running around picking coconuts and fixing shelter roofs while showing twenty million viewers my simian armpits, so I’ve started a series of laser hair removal treatments; when the time comes, I’ll be smooth and camera-ready.
(Sidebar: If you have high-def TV, you’ll thank me for having made the effort. Another selling point for casting me on Survivor is that I won’t already look like I’m starving once I get there, so at no point will you take morbid fascination in counting every knob in my spine and each rib. And why, why, why, Burnett & Co., do you keep casting chicks who look anorexic when you know they’re going to lose another thirty pounds? What were you all thinking when you chose Courtney for the China season? She started off at ninety-five pounds. Thirty-nine days of rice, grubs, and contaminated groundwater did her no favors. Although maybe since she was already possibly pro-ana, her hair growth was retarded? I recall being horrified that her femur was smaller than my forearm, but at no point did I find myself willing the crew to smuggle her in a Lady Bic. In which case, I reiterate that I’d be the perfect pick because I’ll be stubble-free. Seriously, though, Mark Burnett, do you really want these little actress /model/waitresses to die on your islands? Because someone is going to kick off soon, I promise you.)
Ahem.
Anyway, Chinatown.
The cabdriver drops me off at the archway and warns me that taxis don’t make rounds on these tiny little streets. He says I’ll need to walk a few blocks down to an intersection, the street names of which I forget the second I close the door. But how hard can it be to find a way out of here? I