9/17: New York City: Occupied; Part 1

9/17/12 7:00AM - 10:00AM

I woke in the tiniest room imaginable. Birds were chirping, a plus considering the past two mornings I'd woken to snores. Regardless of how harmonious or gentle birds were a nice change of pace. I'd heard a fellow UNregular staffer was on his way down, and last word put him on the Chinatown bus at 2:00AM. My ass needed to get across the bridge to meet him near the Chinatown stop.

I ate a fast breakfast, bolting my food and getting my pack together. I wasn't sure if I'd be back to the house that day so I had to hump my pack about with me.  Stopping by a street vendor I grabbed a cup of coffee and set myself up near a fountain to eat a granola bar and get my bearings. It was only two blocks to the nearest train station, so I shouldered my pack and headed North, stopping at a second street vendor for another cuppa.

9/16 New York, NY: Please Don't Go...

My eyes popped open to a choir of snores. Every third or fourth breath they would sync in harmony. The exhaustion of the past couple days hit me like a bag of hammers. Five hours of sleep on a cement floor did fuck all to do anything other than make me want to sleep more. Walking from Stamford, CT to New Rochelle, NY while wandering around points in between had done me in. I knew if I didn't get some kind of quality rest between now and when I left New York, I'd be destroyed by Philadelphia.

9/15 Brooklyn, NY - Sunset Park #opwalkabout

I woke Saturday morning with a start to three snoring Slovenians. 

I wasn't sure where the fourth had gone, I was assuming he was asleep on the porch or on whatever floor space he could nab in the mad rush to pass out the evening before. Hoping to keep from waking them I tiptoed around the tiny apartment, I'd been brusque at best the evening before and I wanted to make a clean getaway. I packed the top third of my bag putting things away quietly and stepped onto the porch for the mornings first cigarette.  Taking in the early morning air from the 9th floor, the suburb of New York I was staying in had just started to wake up.