Darling “Gretel.” Congratulations on your upcoming birthday! I wouldn’t quite have the balls to plan and send invitations for my own birthday party, but hey, I’m OK with that, especially in our demographic in New York - people entertain so rarely that the idea of doing so in honor of someone else is all but extinct.
But what the fuck are you thinking on the timing?
Look, I know the real estate market is pretty different from when I came to New York. Even in those days, I couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan, and since then my old stomping grounds in Park Slope has become impossible. I’m all in favor of being realistic about what one can afford. So if I were in your shoes today, I’d probably be living in Bed-Stuy, too, which is 45 minutes away from even downtown Manhattan.
What I would not be doing is planning a brunch to start in the morning on a Sunday! In Manhattan, no one goes to brunch in the morning because (a) they aren’t up yet and (b) restaurants can’t serve alcohol on Sundays until noon. For god’s sake, who the hell is gonna get up early to go to Brooklyn?
Don’t you ever do subtraction when thinking about the timing?
I’m coming from Chelsea, which is not that far away as things go; I’m probably about mid-range in distance among your friends. You have exactly one subway station “nearby,” and it’s a half-mile away - at Utica Avenue on the A train. Now, luckily I happen to live on top of an A train stop. But it’s Sunday fucking morning, remember? Trains only run every 15-20 minutes, because the MTA knows that civilized people aren’t awake and moving before noon. So that means that in order to have even a prayer of getting to Utica Ave by 10:50 (giving me ten minutes to walk 1/2 mile, which is not too bad for me), I will have to leave my apartment no later than 9:50. Which, realistically, means that I will have to be up by 9:00 a.m. On a Sunday.
Sweetheart, just what demographic do you think your friends are in? Here’s a clue: it ain’t churchgoers, or parents of early-rising brats*. Fabulous, partying dykes in their mid-20s don’t know too many of either.
Oh, but your girlfiend wants to be somewhere at 2:00. Well, I guess that’s just incompatible with your party planning, isn’t it? Because the earliest people will show is at noon, and people normally stay at brunch until at least 2:30 or 3. If you’re lucky, you might get to where you want to go at 4:00. Better prepare her for that likelihood.
:wally
(Hell, I wouldn’t plan a brunch to start before noon even where I live, which is pretty damn centrally located. People don’t like me that much.)
*Which is redundant. Hominid creatures are, by definition, brats until they regularly sleep later than the last-rising adult in the household.
. It’s BROOKLYN, not somewhere like Long Island or whatnot. It’ll take you 45 minutes tops to get to Bed-Stuy, yes, even on a Sunday morning. And you can always take a bus from the station.
All brunch means is that it’s later than breakfast, and you can choose between vaguely breakfast-y and vaguely lunch-y foods. Most of the restaurants I know serve it from roughly 11:00 to 4 - e.g.