like a sailor to a siren

caveat: I hate long posts. this is one. I’m sorry. Read half and come back later.

I know it’s cliché, but I was a sex and the city fanatic long before I moved to new york. I’m not the type that came here thinking I was going to be a sex and the city girl (however, I’m so much like Miranda’s character that it frightens me, but that’s for another post). I’m not a fan of martinis and I don’t own manolo blahniks. Since I’ve moved here there has been one episode that I could watch over and over. The “fleet week episode” (season 5, first episode). It’s about a love for New York (“you’re never alone in New York, It’s the perfect place to be single. The city is your date”), with a bunch of sailors thrown in. “Fleet week is that one week in nyc where the u.s. naval ships dock and our fair city is made even fairer by cute sweet American sailors looking for fun.” In the episode, Carrie had had a bad day in the city, “[the city] was dismissive, abusive and it made me feel desperate.” But she met a sailor (the hot hot Daniel Sunjata) and he didn’t like new york, “I have to say, this is my first trip to ny. Not for me. I mean, the garbage, the noise, I don’t know how you deal with it.” As she walks away from that sailor, you hear carrie say, “new york may just be my great love, and I can’t have anyone talking shit about my boyfriend.”

Fleet week really is an amazing time in new york for any woman who likes a man in a uniform. They flood times square in groups, all wide-eyed and a little overwhelmed. I hate times square. It’s gaudy, it smells, the tourists don’t know when to cross the street, guys with fake louis vuitton's thowing their wares all over you, and people walk too damn slow. But we grinned and beared it in order to shop for sailors. Girls in new york planning a fleet week outing need only to look cute and make eye contact. All a sailor needs is the teeniest bit of encouragement before he’ll stop and say, “hello ma’am. How you doing this evening?” My friend S and I trolled (yes, we were definitely trolling) for some sailors and they were all looking for a place to get a drink. Good thing S and I had a little place picked out already. We walked through times square for about 45 minutes telling all the sailors who asked, that we were going to Tony’s (not the real name) on 9th ave. They all said they’d see us later. When we were finally ready to head to Tony’s, we passed a group of 12 marines who asked if we were going straight there and could they come with us. We were like pied pipers. Other sailors just started falling in line behind us. There must have been 25 of them by the time we got to the bar. We got there and there were nearly 40 there already, most of which we’d told about the bar earlier in the evening. I think they all felt cheated when they started to realize that they all knew us. We honestly didn’t think most of them would come by. It turns out your average sailor is ten times more honest and reliable than the average man. When they said they’d come by, they actually meant it. We’ll take it easier this year, you know, whore ourselves a little less.

Tony’s is a comfy pub and the boys didn’t stay resentful long. Former officers were buying beers for all the guys, the owner was buying drinks for S and I for bringing all the guys in. Nikki, a waitress at the bar saw us and said, “of course! I should have known it would be jasmine who’d bring all the sailors in!” Me? Reputation for boy craziness? What?! okay, fine, if you insist. At the end of the night, there were two that kept our attention. Sean (20, from TX, very boyish) and Tim (27, from FL, tanned). They were such a comic duo. Tim would say something like, “my mom was a gypsy. I know how to read palms,” and then Sean would make fun of tim endlessly and tim would get angry, as S and I were in tears from laughing so hard. I still think sean was the funniest guy I’ve ever met. However, he was young and a bit sheltered. He had never seen a blind person until he got to new york (i'm so serious about this). he had also never had a bagel and thought the idea of lox was just disgusting. He had pictures of his TX farm where he has lots of goats. Gypsies and goats. We sure know how to pick ‘em, right? So at one point, I went to the bathroom and recognizing S as the weaker of the two of us, they told her that the boat closed at 1 and they weren’t allowed back on. That they had nowhere to stay, could they stay with us? S, smartly, didn’t answer but instead ran back to the bathroom and was yelling, “jasmine! they asked to stay at ours! They said they can’t get back on the boat!” we went back and I told them were were NOT hooking up with them (tim’s gypsy mother and a host of other things that made him entertaining but kind of a weirdo, and sean’s youth…20…ruled them out). Did they understand? They both said yes. I said, “you may think I’m bluffing, but I’m not. We’re seriously not sleeping with you. One of you will get the couch, the other will get the floor.” They both nodded.

They came home with us and remembering that it had been a while since we’d had a man in the house, and since I was drunk and brazen I set them to work. I had them carry out a huge planter with a dead tree that was too heavy for me to lift. I had them change the light bulbs in the ceiling fixtures that I’m too short to reach (even on a chair), and we had them move a little bit of furniture. We felt bad when we saw they got their dress whites dirty from the planter. Tim had asked if I wanted a massage, and made sure to show off all his tattoos (he had a pretty amazing body), but that was all the pressure I got before he realized I wasn’t changing my mind. S and I texted back and forth about how funny it was that they were in our living room. In the morning, they were still nice to us (such gentlemen) even though they didn’t get any ass, and they offered to give us a tour of the ship. They even told us we shouldn’t wear skirts, that we’d be going up ladders (which was kind b/c they could have “forgotten” that fact and made sure to always be the ones to follow us up). We took the staten island ferry over to their boat and got a full tour. It was funny b/c sean kept moving switches, pressing buttons and you’d hear tim yell, “sean! Don’t touch that!” we asked if we couldn’t take the thing out for a spin, or even drop an anchor or something. They said no. actually, sean said sure, tim said no. we went down to their bunks where I think they were supposed to give warning that women were coming down because there were several shocked men coming out of the shower or changing down there. On the shuttle back to the ferry we met two more guys, josh and chad (both southerners as well) and ended up having lunch with them. They were so cute, and both taken, but it was a nice plutonic way to end the weekend.

Fleet week starts this Wednesday. Times square, here we come. Land ho!