Philadelphia Night Market: Long lines for small plates not worth the wait

This past Thursday I went to the latest Philadelphia Night Market, held in the Fairmount section of the city. It was one of those things I’d been idly wanting to check out for a while now, but only a few are held each year; every time one came around, I already had other plans I was loathe to ditch for an evening spent waiting in various lines for expensive mini-portions of food, only to have to stay on my feet continually dodging the crowd in an attempt to eat said mini-portions of food.

The market is intended to be a celebration of street food, and basically its a big food truck round-up.  Notable representatives from the local mobile food scene pull up and park on specially closed city streets, joined by some brick-and-mortar establishments camping out under rented tents.  People can nom their way through a large variety of cuisines, the market set-up allowing for a kind of DIY tasting menu approach.

The festival started around 6 and went until 10; I arrived just after 6 and headed straight for a beer tent.  I was encouraged by the ten minute wait for a tasty pint of local brew in a plastic cup.  Maybe the stories I’d heard about epic hour-long waits for some kimchi-topped Korean BBQ were exaggerated.

Twenty or so minutes later, and it was clear that no one had exaggerated about the lines.  I’ve been to many street festivals in Philadelphia over the years – and quite a few in New York – and I had never seen a mass of humans like this at any remotely similar event.  I waited half an hour — first in one line to order, and then in another to receive my order — for two small tacos that were relatively inexpensive at 4 bucks each, until you consider that came out to more than a buck a bite.  Then I waited twenty more minutes elsewhere to be handed a single scoop of ice cream, another 4 dollars for what amounted to a large tablespoon of rapidly melting ice cream precariously clinging to a small cone.

Still hungry, I looked around for more to eat.  But all I saw was an endless sea of people forming comically long lines that snaked  down blocks and threaded through each other as the roving crowd tried to make their way past in order to reach other equally long lines somewhere down the street.

I lasted an hour and a half altogether before I ducked out on a side street and started making my way home, hungry and a bit irritable, exhausted and overwhelmed by the surging crowd.  I microwaved a frozen burrito, had a glass of wine, and mentally crossed off the night market from my Philadelphia to-do list.  I had finally done it, and discovered that once was enough.

The view, as I was leaving:

Entirely too many humans.

Packing to go and cleaning to leave

I’ve spent that past several weekend with the Russian lover in New York.  These weekends usually start on Thursday night, when I put off packing and go out for drinks instead.  I get home too late and too buzzed to bother filling a suitcase, so I set my alarm for 5:30 and go to bed.

Friday morning I wake up and start throwing things into a carry-on , trying to guess whether it’s going to be winter or spring in New York, whether we’ll end up going out to dinner or dancing, and what shoes I’ll regret not taking.  I will pack things I won’t need and forget things I will want later, but no matter what I pack it will be both too much and not enough.  In short, I pack for trips like a woman.

I also realized, now that I leave my apartment for small stretches with such frequency, that I am a typical woman not just in how I pack, but in how I leave.  I don’t just get myself ready to go; I prepare my home for my absence. I think there is some proverb that asks “If the house is spotlessly clean before you go out of state, does anyone sleep better at night?” and the answer is yes.  Women do.

Men don’t understand why women need to clean a house to get ready for no one being in it.  Men can leave dirty dishes in the sink and lock the door behind them, knowing they’ll be gone for days.  I haven’t yet met a woman who can do this (but if you exist, please tell me your secret! medication? lobotomy?).

I can only conclude that it must be some facet of the nesting instinct, because there are far too many of us frantically dusting lampshades and bleaching curtains before a vacation for this to be a mere social construct.

Run or also-ran

I went for a run outside today, and the good news is that I didn’t get hit by a car or step in dog shit or need to cab it all the way back and call my chiropractor.  The morning might tell my knees and lumbar spine a different story, but tonight I feel strong and invigorated.

It was beautiful–nearly perfect–running weather in Philadelphia this evening.  Cool but sunny, breezy but not windy, with no humidity to be found.  Today was the kind of day we should have had throughout March and April, but this year those months were busy doing their best impersonation of February. Now I’m afraid we’re running out of our allotment of spring; too soon summer will take over completely and running in Philadelphia will feel like nestling in the armpit of an obese cafeteria lady.

Outdoor running has never been something I cared for; I only took up running at all eight years ago.  Before that I just heaved and retched once I approached a slow jog and assumed that I simply couldn’t run.  It runs out that the trick to building up to steady running from nothing is interval training, cross training, and a reservoir of anger toward an ex-boyfriend.

I started running on a treadmill, and I stuck with running on a treadmill for as long as I was regularly running.  When I was sidelined by injury, my doctor suggested I add outside running into the mix.  I was reluctant.  Everything that outside runners hate about treadmill running — the monotony of the view, the unchanging terrain underfoot, the stale climate-controlled air — I loved.  Running was still hard enough for me — I didn’t want to introduce variables, which I viewed solely as obstacles.

Today I am stronger than ever, but still I was surprised with my endurance over the course of an easy 3-mile run over changing inclines.  Ah-ha!  I thought at first.  I can totally do this.  This outside running thing, it’s great!  It’s not so hard and it’s even kind of interesting.

And then the first person from out of nowhere passed me on the sidewalk.  And then another.  And then a lot more, and then so many more that I stopped counting.  And I experienced something that I hadn’t since being lapped on the track during gym class in high school — the immediate self-judgement of being passed by another runner.

I’m sure people who race and compete know this feeling well; or, they’ve discovered a way to channel it into something positive.  I merely absorbed the vague unease I felt about apparently being the slowest person on the streets of Philadelphia, and began to understand what else it was about running on the treadmill that had always attracted me.

The line of treadmills at the gym is almost a democracy of athleticism; it doesn’t matter how fast someone is actually going on their conveyor belt  or how fast I am going on mine.  We are all suspended at the perpetual finish line of an equal outcome; starting at the same place, going nowhere, and then finishing there together.

But no, that’s not really a democracy at all.  The guy running fast and hard — with sweat pooling on the floor behind him and his breath growing ragged — well, it seems somehow wrong for him to be suspended continuously in the exact same space as a girl with a minuscule stride and her eyes locked on the nearby TV.

My affection for the treadmill, I think, stems from the same source as liberals’ affection for socialism.  It’s ultimately a desire to make success and failure, effort and apathy, and passion and obligation all appear to be equivalent until effectively, they are.

Maybe it’s time for me to stay outside and run like a capitalist.