I "like as a friend" New York

More vacation stories…

It probably seems extremely odd that I had been to Iceland before I ever visited New York. True, I flew out of New York to get there but time spent at JFK really doesn’t count as visiting the city. I just never had a reason or much of a desire to visit the city. I always claim that it is part of my Chicago bias. I grew up in a big city that is the best place in the world so I never saw any reason to go to New York, which from my understanding was just a more crowded and less polite version of Chicago.

But it was time for me to go to the big city and I have to say that I was rather impressed especially given what it took for us to get there. We decided to take an airport shuttle van to our hotel, which was a major mistake as a) it took us an hour and a half to actually get to the hotel and b) we were packed in like sardines to the point that we had to breathe in unison. You really don’t want to have your first impression of the city be mainly “get me out of this freaking van.”

We did make it to our hotel in Times Square and I have to admit that it was quite a sight. Outside of a few parts of London I don’t think that I had ever seen anything quite like it. The sheer mass of humanity was stunning. My years in KC and Delaware have really hidden me from the density of a true big city. New York just has people everywhere. Chicago has an unbelievable amount of wide open spaces in comparison. Also, things just move fast. There is that natural sense of everyone needing to go somewhere quickly. None of this meandering stuff.

We only had one day in the city so we mainly did some touristy stuff. Had breakfast at a deli so I could have a real New York bagel, which tasted surprisingly like every other bagel I have ever had. Toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was awesome though I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the Dutch Masters. I just prefer the Impressionists; it is just more my style. We did a lot of shopping at places like the M&M store (yes, they have their own store) and the largest Swatch store in the US. We even saw a play because that is what you do when you are in New York.

I will have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my time there. I would have no problem going back and exploring the city some more and let’s face it; it’s not like I even scratched the surface on things to do there. I don’t think that I could actually live there because I like my wide open spaces. It’s not that I have to live out in the middle of Montana but I like having at least a modicum of personal space. True, there is everything that you could ever want to experience in that city except for the possibility of peace and quiet. Good food though and really smart cabbies. Got to hand it to any town with good cab drivers.

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And I’m back…

Ok, I know I owe a bit of an explanation here. I’ve been on vacation the past few days. As is usually the case when I need to reset myself and contemplate what my future will hold I made my way to New Orleans. Because there are certain things in life that can only be comprehended over a good bowl of gumbo. I decided to log off, not check my email, rest the blog, and just be in the moment for once in my life.

It’s strange at how unusual it is for me to completely log off from the universe. I’ll admit to checking Facebook on my phone but from Friday until today that was all I did. For someone who is so wired in, who spends most of his time connected to a computer, to just spend the day walking around a city, looking at artwork and enjoying himself is a really amazing experience. I wasn’t concerned about numbers or spam emails or how many hits my blog got yesterday. I just wanted to be outside, relax and be happy.

(Interesting note on the comment about how people appreciate my posts when they are upbeat and positive. Those posts are incredibly difficult for me to write. One reason is that I just am funnier as a curmudgeon. I can make great jokes about how horrible the world is, how stupid other people are and how pathetic a loser I am in about two seconds. Those posts are incredibly easy to write. But having to write about being happy? I don’t really have the vocabulary for it.

The other reason is this. I am superstitious to the point of paralyzing fear. There is a part of my brain that is convinced that if I talk about how I am happy, that if I reveal the reason why I am happy, expound on how I expect this happiness to continue on into the future, that the happiness will then cease to be and I will be thrust back into my sad, curmudgeonly existence. This makes life rather challenging, especially given that it explains why I never seem to let myself be happy.)

I’ll probably tell some of the stories over the next few days (the Krewe of Barkus and Valentine the Dog both deserve their day in the sun). Right now I just want to unpack, relax and get ready for work tomorrow. Because I can’t avoid the real world forever.

And Valentine’s Day? Let’s just say that it is one I will never forget. And as a result I really hope to have to learn how to write upbeat and happy posts for a long time to come.