New York Adventure
Steve, last week: Aren’t you excited for our trip to NYC? It’ll be an adventure!
Me: No. I do not like adventure.
This is true. I would love to be an impulsive, spontaneous, adventurous person, but I have come to accept that I am not. I like routine and home and knowing where things are. On the Meyers-Briggs, I am very, very J (INFJ). Travel, with its myriad uncertainties, is very anxious-making for me.
But our trip to NYC was great. We took the Bolt Bus, which I highly recommend. On the way up, I edited two chapters. On the way back, I took a nap and then caught up on my Google Reader. Buses with extra legroom and wireless FTW! Once in NY, we managed to navigate the subway without too much difficulty. It is totally different from the DC subway—older and grungier, but also cheaper!
My three favorite things about our trip were:
1) The Strand. I spent two hours browsing the YA section and ended up buying a dozen books, which Steve graciously carted around for the rest of the night. I bought a few Christmas presents, some $4 Francesca Lia Block books to add to my collection, and a few Debs books that I’ve been meaning to get, including Jackson Pearce’s As You Wish and a signed copy of Neesha Meminger’s Shine, Coconut Moon! Ooh, and I snagged a former review copy hiding in the basement of Kate Messner’s The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z! So excited to dive into these.
2) Our tour guides/resident NY friends, Rob and Meg. Rob took us to the hilarious hipster zoo of Williamsburg for brunch. Plus he took us out for amazing Thai food with mock duck and to Barcade, where I played my very first arcade games at the ripe old age of 29. I sucked it at Ms. Pacman but I had a lot of fun. It was just generally fab to see Meg, whom I miss and am trying to convince to move back to DC. She stayed out with us until 4:30 in the morning even though she had to work a triple the next day at the Blue Man Group.
3) The show! That’s right, the 5-hour play that I bitched about having to see? It was actually awesome. I have been to 2.5 hour plays that have seemed longer; I left feeling more energized than when I arrived. If you are in NY, check out The Lily’s Revenge at Here Arts Center. It’s gotten great reviews. It contains feathers, zombie flower girls, a nightmare ballet about marriage, amazing heels, ukulele songs, an evil stepmother wedding dance, a curtain striptease by the god of nostalgia, and lots of sparkles. It is also a thought-provoking allegory about gay marriage that explodes gender roles. And did I mention that during the three intermissions, you can go downstairs and join the dance party in the dressing room?
Moral to the story: adventure will not kill me.
