vino & the bean: I.Heart.NY/Virginia.Is.For.Lovers: (Dwell & Tell VI)

Virginia is for (coffee) Lovers. The coffee shops featured in this blog are the coffee shops of downtown Staunton, VA. Though I failed to blog during the month of December while I was there, I made sure to take a few pictures of some of the best spots. The two that are not represented in the photos are Blue Mountain Coffee (a gem, down by the Wharf and the railroad tracks) and Cranberries (really, really, good organic coffee in the cafe of this tiny Natural Foods Market.) The photos on the blog home page show Mugshots, Newtown Bakery, and Coffee on the Corner. While the story below starts in NYC, its happy ending takes place in VA. Virginia is for Lovers.

Coffee on the Corner, Staunton, VA

The apartment that I stayed in before subletting to Todd's room was a not a rental but a gift. My friend Darron offered me his apartment -rent free- while he was out of town for work. I don't remember how I even got the keys, but I drove there, up to 188th Street in Washington Heights with a couple of auditions scheduled and a couple hundred dollars to last until I got a day job, unless, of course, one of the auditions panned out. Darron's apartment was a fucking dream. A rent-free apartment anywhere on the island of Manhattan -probably- is a dream. He apologized for the lack of decoration, lack of TV, that lots of things were still packed away in cardboard boxes, but I don't care about any of that. Darron's one bedroom place was tidy, sunlit, and he left me the use of his Egyptian cotton sheets and his well-stocked cd collection. (His cd collection was massive. He is one of the country's -maybe the world's- finest sound designers.) Darron's place was only available for a month.

Whatever auditions I was counting on fell through, but after a lot of pavement-pounding/passing/jay-walking, I found a couple of gyms that wanted to hire me. I also found the next apartment. My friend Todd was heading to L.A. for a bit and his half of a two-bedroom apartment on the 109th Street was available. I'd be sharing the place with his best friend, Joey, whom I'd never met. This, of course, can be problematic, and all I knew of Joey was: actor, not around very much, and engaged to a woman who was out of the country doing amazing work for underprivileged women in serious need of help.

I left Darron's place as tidy as I found it, but -as he reported to me later- with small evidence that I was there: a can of beets (?), some coffee, and the sash/belt of my plaid grandpa bathrobe that I'd used to jimmy-rig the freestanding shower rod when part of it broke. Darron promised to get that back to me, and today the sash is on the robe and the robe is on me. (Thanks, D.)

109th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus was discovered and reported to be the most rat-infested block in all of Manhattan. Block. In Manhattan.

That's pretty specific.

And pretty gross.

Neither Todd nor Joey thought to include such neighborhood trivia as they sought a subletter.

You get used to the rats in New York when you live there, no matter how squeamish you start out. It's disgusting, for sure, but after a while the squeamish turns to annoyance, and then inconvenience. You get good at recognizing the four-legged scurry from curb to stoop that characterizes not a furry neighborhood cat, but unmistakably, a thin-tailed rodent. I knew I'd reached the height of my indifference when, one morning, walking to the subway in the dark for an early morning shift at the gym, I tripped on something that was not visible as I approached, nor after the trip. I shrugged and took a sip of the coffee in the travel mug from Todd and Joey's kitchen. I loved that travel mug.

Todd and Ginna at Joey's wedding, 2005.

Like Darron, Todd left his room in generally the same condition that it upheld while he was residing in it. A fellow, Ohioan, Todd covered his room wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling in Ohio State University paraphanelia. It was impressive... a wash of scarlet and gray. I am a Buckeye fan myself, but I am quicker characterized as a.) color-sensitive and b.) a neat freak, meaning that, in order for me to get anything done, I need neutral colors and zero clutter. Todd seemed mystified a few months later when he returned and discovered that I'd stored one or two or twenty-five OSU souvenirs into the small storage space in the small hallway. (For the record, Joey said with a little grin that, yes, it would be okay, and he even helped hoist the box into it's overhead cubby.)

During the six or seven months that I lived with Joey, he had the distinct misfortune of enduring the following:

1.) Sacrificing his travel mug to the female intruder-roommate who used it every day under the assumption that it belonged to Todd and was therefor free-game

2.) One of my Sara McLachlin phases. It was her third or fourth album. I became attached to it and in true Ginna-style, listened to virtually nothing else from December to March. (It was winterish. I liked that.)

3.) My breakup with Younger Man who preferred someone his own age... among other qualities of which I would never possess.

I was wrecked. My regularly occurring 30 year-old crises about work and family and life had probably driven Younger Man away. I was the enemy and I blamed myself for everything. ... Until a few months later when Y. M. said to me over a Sushi Deluxe Platter: "I never believed you loved me." And then I felt pretty sure that he was the enemy. Joey was sweet. Invited me out for a beer with him and his friends a time or two. Consoled me in the way that guys do.

And then, an opportunity popped up for me to have my own place, closer to work, and even cheaper than A-Hundred-and-Rat Street, so I took it. (Coming Soon, Dwell & Tell VII.) At one point when Todd was home and we all went out, he and Joey gifted me with a shiny, bright red travel-mug. (Ah, I've been using Joey's mug every day, haven't I?) And then, several months after that, Joey invited me to his wedding. I almost didn't go...

Joey and Kristina at our wedding, 10-10-10.

The wedding was on October 9, 2005. I was surprised to be invited, but flattered and I wanted to go. But I was pretty depressed around the time. In fact, I think it was the first time in my life, I admitted to being depressed in the way that might actually require help. It had been months since my break-up with Younger Man, but there hadn't been even a whisper of someone interesting to date. I'd had a very rough time producing/performing my solo show in Edinburgh, and needed to rack up hours at the gym to make the rent of my new apartment on the Upper West Side, (see "Dwell & Tell Part 2") and each hour spent at this particular gym equaled a significant drop in Serotonin and self-worth. I swear, I almost didn't go to this wedding. But... it was a Sunday wedding, I had no clients, I had no excuse, plus, I liked Joey! Jen and Amy had been over the night before (partly monitoring my depression, I suspect) and saw the borrowed Betsy Johnson dress I planned to wear. "Go," was the advice. Amy felt sure I would meet a guy. I rolled my eyes. The next day, I was searching for a seat on the train out to the New Jersey wedding when I spotted the man to whom I would promise the rest of my life.

I recognized this instantly.

He, on the other hand, recognized nothing more than the fact that he might lose the comfortably empty seat beside him and gave me every non-verbal cue available to him to "SIT SOMEWHERE ELSE."

I did.

But there was little he could do later, at the reception dinner, when we discovered our name cards thoughtfully/arbitrarily (?) placed at side-by-side settings. "Hi, I'm Ginna..."

Five years and one day later, we were married just outside of Staunton, VA. Joey and his wife Kristina, celebrating their five year anniversary, attended.

And that is how a story started in NYC ended in Virginia.