We’re letting our lease expire June 30 (because we’re not terribly fond of our location, our building manager who takes months to get things fixed, our super who can’t fix things himself and who doesn’t speak English, our cafeteria tile floor, our mouse, and so forth), and we’re looking for a new apartment for June 1. We want a month of overlap so that we can paint the whole place our own colors, really design the interior, and take our time moving.

In a normal city, we’d start looking 1-2 months in advance. In New York City, the recommended time to start looking is 3 days in advance because they like to rent things immediately. There isn’t really a shortage of real estate, as the brokers would have us believe; they just don’t like to advertise an apartment until it’s truly ready for a tenant, and then they hope to get a tenant in there immediately. If you’re not ready to move in for a month or two, they’d rather keep looking for a tenant who’s ready sooner. Of course, that’s not to say they’ll find one, so often you’ll find the same apartment is still available when you’re ready for an immediate apartment.

Also in a normal city, you wouldn’t pay a broker half of your limbs, but in New York City they control, and solely represent, most of the buildings you’d want to live in. It’s a winning situation for the landlord, since the broker takes care of the advertising and screening and doesn’t charge the landlord. It’s a losing situation for the tenant, because the broker does very little work and gets paid an exorbitant amount, but the landlord and broker don’t care.

Today I contacted several brokers whose apartments were listed on Craig’s List. I’m going to view one of the apartments today (because I called that one instead of emailing), and I’m crossing my fingers to find what I want without too much hassle.

This weekend I was fortunate enough to stumble upon three street fairs while going about my business in the city.

There was one on 2nd Avenue which blocked my bus from reaching Urban Outfitters (my destination) on Saturday, but it was rather disappointing. There were very few vendors (each had his own block of the street, it seemed) and even fewer visitors. I think it was basically rained out.

The next one was on University Place, and I walked into it while wandering around Nolita later on Saturday. It was bustling with people, crafts, cheap wares, and great food. I was very excited to get my first street fair corn dog of the year. I also tried something new called an arapa, which is mozzarella between two sweet corn patties. It was… interesting. And of course, no street fair would be complete without an excellent nutella-filled crepe. My friend Michelle joined me, and we wandered up and down University for hours, enjoying the food, the occasional rain, and the vibe. It was definitely good times. We decided that the calories don’t count as long as you keep walking the whole time.

I ran into the third street fair on Sunday, as it was located on Broadway in the nineties, in front of the theatre where I was seeing a show. It was basically the same as the previous street fair, but it was more crowded (to the point of being “too crowded” instead of just “delightfully lively”). I grabbed a corn dog and then left.

Apparently there will be more street fairs throughout May, and I’m excited. I want more corn dogs.

If you’re in need of a great peanut butter shake in the theatre district, try the Renaissance Restaurant [Diner] on 9th and 52nd. Their food is typical diner food, so it’s not all that great, but their shakes are peculiarly amazing.

While walking down Third Avenue, I picked up a menu from a Mexican restaurant called Samalita’s of California. I was all excited. Could it really be just like the Mexican restaurants back home?

First thing I always look for is the chicken quesadilla because it’s my favorite. They had two quesadillas on the menu:

Quesadillas
Corn Tortillas with Monterey Jack Cheese
Original Cheese – $4.75
Picadillo or Chorizo con Papas – $5.25

What the fuck? They don’t have a chicken quesadilla or a beef quesadilla, but they have a chorizo con papas quesadilla? Who orders that? And as if that’s not bad enough, they put both quesadillas on corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas.

Mexican food is so simple. It constantly amazes me when I see the great lengths to which Mexican restaurants in New York will go to screw it up.

I’ve got eight winning Diet Pepsi bottle caps so far, but the cafeteria downstairs has run out of Diet Pepsi. Now I’m stuck drinking Diet Mountain Dew because a) I won’t drink regular Pepsi, and 2) Mountain Dew also has the iTunes promotion. I’m not a big fan of the Dew, though. If you’re going to have a caffeinated soda, it needs to taste like cola, and it needs to not look like extra-terrestrial urine.

This past weekend I was back in California for my grandpa’s eightieth birthday party, and I managed to visit many of the restaurants I miss. I ate at Del Taco, In-N-Out, El Torito Grill, Cafe Pascal, Claim Jumper, BJ’s, and Harbor House. If you’re in California, I highly recommend that you enjoy these places while you have access to them. I haven’t found better tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches, tortillas, quiche or crepes, potato cheddar soup, dessert, or milkshakes since I moved to New York.

They served coq au vin in the Cafe downstairs today. I couldn’t help but giggle because it sounded like cock with wine.

But then I was humbled by the realization that, technically, it is cock with wine. I mean, it’s prob’ly just standard chicken when they cook it here, but clearly coq is the same root as our word cock (ie, “rooster”). So now it’s not funny anymore.

Wait… coq au vin… actually, yeah, it’s still funny.

Until about 6pm, Traci, Amanda, Ashleigh, and I didn’t have any set plans. We were really cutting it close, since most things-to-do required tickets or reservations, and we knew we didn’t want to stand in Times Square for hours to watch the ball drop.

Our ideal New Year’s idea was to go to a bar or a restaurant, have some dinner and a few drinks, and then somehow watch the ball drop (if possible) or at least some fireworks, preferably from a place that wasn’t too crowded.

We managed to get a reservation at Beacon, a really fancy, expensive restaurant on 56th between 5th and 6th. Since most restaurants in the city were charging upwards of $100 per person for buffet-style dinners tonight, we decided it was worth it to buy ourselves expensive dinner for any amount less than that. And instead of mediocre food from a place like Friday’s (which was charging $195 per person) or Planet Hollywood ($225 per person), we got AMAZING high-class dinner for about $80 each.

After dinner, we decided we would go up to Central Park so we could at least HEAR the ball drop (or rather, the crowd’s reaction to it) and see the fireworks in the park. When we got to the park, it had a crowd, but it wasn’t stuffed person-to-person like all of 7th Ave and Broadway were. There was plenty of room for us to move about, and… best of all… WE COULD SEE THE BALL IN TIMES SQUARE, ONE MILE AWAY!!!

So sure enough, we got our wish. We watched the ball drop, and we watched the big “2005″ sign light up in Times Square, and we watched the fireworks behind us in the park and in Times Square. It was great.

Why would anyone want to have “Dinner with Shamu”? Like really, if I wanted whale snot on my food, I’d eat sushi.

Last night was long and full of adventures.

After the show, we had our official cast party at the Depot. It included a great deal of crappy food, so I just had a Diet Coke and some cream puffs. Heather informed me that she really liked my jeans. I asked if she wanted to borrow them sometime, and she said yes. Then I asked if she wanted to go trade pants, and she agreed to that wholeheartedly. So we went into the Amtrak and traded pants, after which her ass looked very hot and I looked very ridiculous. Eventually it got old, and we traded back.

Heather gave me her keys to hold at some point (which is generally a bad idea). I took her car key off the ring and discreetly handed it to Sammi. I asked Sammi to give it to John and have him do something (anything) to Heather’s car. Then I stayed within Heather’s sight at all times and audibly played with her keys so she wouldn’t notice that anything was amiss. A while later John walked up to me, and I took the car key back from him and put it back on Heather’s key ring.

The cast party eventually became boring around eight o’clock, and we decided to figure out what was next. My suggestion was Harbor House in Dana Point because no one else had ever been there. They’d been to the one in Sunset Beach, but not Dana Point.

So we caravanned to 840 to drop off some cars. Heather never said anything about her car, so I asked John what he did to it. He informed me that he didn’t do anything; he thought Sammi had done something and that he was simply supposed to return the key to me. So yeah, Heather got off easily. Anyway, we carpooled in two cars to Harbor House in Dana Point. John, Colin, Kyle, and Heather rode in Sammi’s car, and Donald, David, Danny, and I rode in Chelsey’s car.

Trenton and Jill joined us later at Harbor House, bringing our total to twelve. Our waiter was Guillermo, and he was extremely polite (especially compared to most Harbor House employees) and spoke several languages. We really liked him. He called everyone “friend,” and responded to our thank yous with “it is my pleasure.”

Apparently Harbor House didn’t pay their electric bill, though, as just before we left, the power went out in the restaurant. I don’t think any of us had ever experienced something like that before, and I’m pretty sure the employees hadn’t either. They were walking around holding up lighters to try and illuminate the place. Fortunately we were all paying cash, so we were able to pay the bill and leave. We included a really fat tip for Guillermo because we liked him so much. Just as we were leaving, the power came back on, so they didn’t have to walk around with lighters for too long.

I decided to teach everyone about the clever placement of the two Harbor Houses, explaining that Golden Lantern practically turns into Anderson, so both Harbor Houses are basically at the same intersection in two different cities. “What’s the other street?” asked John jokingly. “It’s PCH,” Heather answered brightly.

Jill went home after Harbor House, but the rest of us (now in three cars because Trenton had joined us) decided to visit Main Beach because I informed them that it was open past ten o’clock. Chelsey (who is twenty) had ordered a couple of beers at Harbor House, so she let me drive her car for the rest of the evening. We drove our three cars up PCH and parked near Main Beach.

For a while, we just messed around on the beach. Some of the group had blow-pops (thanks to Jenn, who brought them to the show as a gift). The boys found a large crevice that looked like a vagina and played with it for a while. Meanwhile, Heather and I went to Diedrich because the sound of waves made her want to pee. I ordered an iced coffee while she used the facilities, and then we walked back to the beach to join our friends.

Donald and Danny had picked up Chelsey and were threatening to throw her in the ocean, and when they finally put her down, she freaked out because her phone was no longer in her pocket. She made us all start looking, but when she turned away, Danny held her phone (which he had taken) up in the air and showed it to the rest of us. After a couple more minutes of “looking,” Danny suggested that he should call Chelsey’s phone to see if we could hear it ring. He pulled Chelsey’s phone out of his pocket, right in front of her, and dialed her number. It rang a few times, and we all stood there watching, wondering when Chelsey would notice that “Danny’s phone” suddenly looked just like her phone. Finally she caught on, and she got her phone back.

As we were laughing at Chelsey, we noticed a large man with long hair and a purpose approaching us. His name was Pascha, and he was most definitely on drugs or schizophrenic. He got right in our faces and demanded a cigarette, but all we had were blow-pops. He made fun of us for having “lollipops” instead of cigarettes, and he called us “the lollipop guild.” He was very scary, and he had a habit of walking up to people as though he was planning to plow directly through them. There were eleven of us and only one of him, but I’m pretty sure we were outnumbered.

He wouldn’t leave us alone, so we eventually left that part of the beach and walked up toward the Laguna Inn to get away from the crazy Pascha. We took the walkway that goes past the hotel and then walked down the stairs to another part of the beach. It was low tide, so there was actually beach there instead of just rocks. Danny told us a “scary” story about being at a similar beach in Santa Barbara and seeing a woman in a white gown standing on the rocks. It was extremely dark, so we didn’t stay very long because we were concerned about encountering more Paschas.

On our way back to our cars, we briefly encountered Pascha again. He informed us that Satan is bad, and we were very grateful.

Next, Sammi’s car and Trenton’s car followed my car up to Top of the World. I even took Third Street so they could experience the unbelievably steep hill. We stood on a cement bench at Top of the World for a long time, looking out at the lights of Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills below us (to the northeast). “We should really call someone,” Danny suggested. He took out his phone and dialed, and then he asked us all to say “Hi dipshit!” into the phone. We complied, and he informed us afterward that we had just left a message for our friend Matt.

Heather went to Sammi’s car to get her phone, and Danny informed us that the message was actually for Heather (who had therefore called herself a dipshit), not for Matt. We all found that very amusing, and when Heather returned with her cell phone, she reported, “The dipshit message was for me! It wasn’t really for Matt! Danny called my phone instead!”

At some point, everyone got really quiet while looking out over the city. I told them a “scary” story about being at a similar hill in Santa Barbara and seeing a woman in a white gown standing on the rocks.

When we’d had enough nature, we drove our three cars back toward 840. The people in my car raved about what an exciting adventure we’d had, and I secretly gloated because I had suggested every single thing we had done that evening. It made me really proud, knowing that I had introduced almost a dozen people to new places and new experiences in one evening.

Back at 840, we watched John’s home video of the show. I had refused to watch it while the show was still in progress (because seeing myself would have made me self-conscious when performing), so I was excited to finally see it. I’m normally very critical of all shows, including my own, but our show really was enjoyable. It was also a great way to end an eventful closing night cast party. The video ended around two o’clock, and I said my goodbyes and headed home to write in my journal.