Brunch, Beer and Blasts from the Past

This morning, Tokii and I met Gina for brunch - my first-ever brunch in New York City. I don't think brunching is as trendy in the South as it is in New York City. I mean, my friends in New York list "brunching" as one of their interests on their myspace pages. Brunch this morning wasn't in a posh, shi-shi location in Soho; rather it was at an IHOP in Harlem, but nonetheless, I was brunching in Manhattan!

"Brunch?" Terrence had asked, feigning ignorance, "What is brunch?"

"You know," I answered. "A meal between breakfast and lunch ... brunch."

"Whatever," he replied, "Is it your first meal of the day?" Yes.

"Then, it's breakfast." But it's almost noon.

"Then, it's lunch." But I'm eating French Toast with strawberries and whipped cream.

"So were you guys walking down the street hoping the wind would blow so you could feel like the opening credits of Sex & the City?" Laughing.

This afternoon, I met other friends in the East Village to celebrate Eileen's 27th birthday. We gathered at Nice Guy Eddie's to drink beer, eat chips and salsa, and watch the Eagles lose to the Buccaneers, which a fair majority of the bar was very upset about. I was also reintroduced to a guy I had not seen since middle school in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Eileen, Greg and I were in the 7th and 8th grades together before my family moved to Camp Lejuene. We weren't really childhood friends (Eileen and Greg were popular; I was a dork), but we had classes together and it was a little surreal to be sitting in an East Village bar with them over a decade later.

While drinking beer and watching football, I didn't really have the incentive to analyze the moment, but on the train back to the Bronx, I rewound and fastforwarded my life between middle school and today. I didn't come up with any profound and significant meanings. It's just time.

Other news of the day:
Terrence played on Jamie Foxx's basketball team in an And1/comedian tournament in Atlanta this afternoon. His sister sent me a text message to notify me of several dunks, a couple of blocks and 20-something points.

One of the scarfs Eileen designed (she works for a major fashion company) is featured in GQ Magazine this month.

And I got my eyebrows threaded at an Indian salon on Sixth Avenue between 23rd and 24th Street. In the immortal, early-1990 words of rapper Ice Cube, "Today was a good day."