My first concert, and other forms of destiny

Lyric from a Billy Joel song “I’m in a New York state of mind” — this lyric Finally makes sense to me now…. Heh, somehow I don’t know if thats a good thing of not yet. I decided to follow some unrelated yet seemingly to me completely related advice a friend gave me about keeping a journal with a name on teach page.

The advise was actually about doing distance Reiki – and its extremely effective, but I also decided, since a small 3×5 moleskin is easy to carry, it makes a good stream of consciousness filter for me.

First, mea culpa to any of my friends for negative spew the past few days – I can’t promise that its over, but I do feel it will be significantly more minimized at this point.

So, we have a vacation in NY – well its a complete vacation for me, although technically spiritually its a working vacation – does one every really get a spiritual vacation prior to death? Not certain I really want to think too much more about that, because the answer doesn’t really matter much for my life.

In anycase, this is a learning experience for me. Sometimes in life those are positive, many many times they are challenging. This is one of the later.

Learned a very interesting tool, for distance traveling – to utilize distance Reiki to make the trip — Smoother? – that seems like it, easiest way to specifically scientifically quantify it, like when the stars align and things go just right… One small minor hiccup was that in sending the distance energy through visualization, I somehow or for whatever reason neglected the “actual” take off and landing… So the energy ride was sort of bumpy in those moments, as my consciousness shifted in and out of the stream I’d prepared for the journey. Wild trip.

From the moment we got to the park and ride, things were just – easier. The shuttle picked us up as it usually does, but was a little less crowded, the people were a little more subdued, and were a little less busy body then usual. There was no line at the Jet Blue check in, and we were able to instantly get our bags checked, tags written and labeled, and boarding passes. While we had the upgraded seating for the speed pace, there was literally NO line through security. We walked right in and the TSA was waiting for us to arrive. Only had a few things to pull out of the bag, and the whole check was in a blink of the eye. The gate was close, and we got water right outside of the security. Bathroom was on the way to the gate.

We parked at the gate for a little longer than normal, due to having literally no delays in arrival. The plane was early! We were last to board, due to being in the front, and we boarded literally 5 minutes before take off, and the flight left a wee bit early. The steward not only greeted me, but made a human connection with me, and getting the seat belt extender for P was no trouble at all. The stewardess was friendly and kind, the drink and snack service was fast, and while I had realized early Friday Morning that the episodes of NCIS I had on my IPad were ones I’d already watched (I love watching NCIS on plane rides, its sort of a personal ritual tradition) – Jet blue had TV, and the first channel I flipped to had NCIS playing at the beginning of an episode, which followed with 3 other episodes. Sure I had commercials, but even those weren’t terrible annoying – most were for web sites, social media, or for future tv shows. Was sort of surreal. The snacks were even mildly healthy.

Flight landed 20 minutes early. Yes, I typed that correctly 20 full minutes early. We got to the luggage area, and even picking up the suitcases was a breeze.

We got a cab and the only snag was Phil decided spontaneously to add an extra stop along the way to see his old neighborhood. It took us a little deviation on the trip, which caused us to hit more traffic and not arrive at the hotel for another 2 hours.

The hotel – ah the hotel – such an enigma. If I were a single women, this would be THE spot to be. It is truly an artists paradise. The decor and charm of this place are on par with the hotel I stayed in with my boss in Malmo (The Savoy right off the train station)

The room is quite small. When I say this I must confess that having 2 bodies trying to share it – two tech bodies trying to share this space makes it stepping over each other. (As I type this I’m enjoying a spot of tea in the lobby) P & I both agree that the entire room is about the size of our bathroom at home. Its approximately 150sq ft with a Queen bed in the middle. There is barely enough room to walk around the 3 sides of the bed, and literally no storage space. There is a small closet area by the door, that has a mini bar, and a small suitcase stand, and a hanging rack for clothes. I’ve commandeered this area and unpacked my clothes onto the upper top shelf in the space. It feels very much like stepping over each other. The bathroom is not a bad size. There is actually a nice amount of room in there both around the sink, and in the shower. The tile is marble and its really elegant. The fixtures are all bronze, and they are well cared for, and old style – the sink especially with a nozzle that turns around, its very — well it makes me feel in touch with the writers of old that have stayed in this place.

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner the first night in the restaurant, local organic fare that apparently changes on a regular basis, and was all very very good. The service was also quite noteworthy, all of the staff at the hotel have been more than kind, seeking to make the experience very intimate and cozy at the same time. They have these enormous Key’s with the concept that you leave your room key when you step out for the day or evening, and pick it back up when you return. In this day and age, its a concept I have difficulties adopting, but the 50$ lost key fee does make it alittle enticing even to me.

The hotel also provides a complimentary continental breakfast – and this is actually a quite nice one. Its a nice take on a choice between yogurt/granola/fruit & pastries/jam/honey — both with a choice of coffee/juice. We have splurged both mornings and supplemented breakfast with an egg/chicken/kale dish that has been well worth the price. All of the portions are generous. They also have a house made almond milk cappuccino that is divine.

Its really not possible to find something unpleasant to say about the hotel other than the size of the room, and this is only uncomfortable from the perspective of being able to hide away from the bustle and game 🙂 so I suppose this is the universe telling me “No World of Warcraft for you” — I actually was able to log in and play, but sitting on the bed, with the laptop on my lap and trying to balance my mouse is just not “fun” in any stretch of the word.

P & I both had a list of things we wanted to see here in NY – there were precious few that made both my list and his list – one of the rare dual objectives was a trip to the secret stash. So yesterday, we braved the highland ferry and a cab ride to Red bank to make a visit to one of our favorite director/comedian/actor/comic book store aficionado’s infamous comic book store. The secret stash. The place was well worth the trip, it was nostalgic to walk through, not to mention I picked up a few Neil Gaiman books for the flight home 🙂

The trip taught me a few things about myself, about NY, about NYers, about NJ – and did I mention yet we had an amazingly racist cab driver on the way back to the Ferry? He apparently owns land in Texas, and I guess the fact that we were white seemed to give him license to feel comfortable expressing his very toxic views. Small world indeed.

The ferry at sunset was truly an inspiring site though – seeing the bridges with the lights, and the statue of liberty lite up – she is much smaller than I’d imagined. Its hard to think of her as small, except she is dwarfed by the skyline of skyscrapers literally overshadowing her.

Truly funny moment today, and an odd thing that occurred. We have a joke in Texas that before anything gets built, there is a pile of dirt. This is a notorious “pile of dirt” – because it basically takes until the dirt starts to have green grass, and sometimes trees sprouting out of it, until they will actually start breaking ground on the construction. Riding past a construction site here in NY for a “new” skyscraper – there was a huge huger hole in the ground — so apparently before construction starts in NY they get a crater. Pile of Dirt = Texas Hole in the ground = New York.

The second thing on our mutual lists, is what filled our day today – to take a city tour. Basically to “find” where his conference is this week, this was a snap – then find where we picked up the city tour bus and ride it around. While I am having some trouble with the sheer crowds of people, I’m having many many moments of simulated panic in my head from the feeling of being trapped on an island with more than 8 million strangers. The city tour actually helped me put that a little bit down. Being on the top, in the back of a double decker bus, it was easy to “see” and “experience” the city, from the relative safety of a slightly elevated perspective. It was probably one of the best things we could have done for me.

Had a friend tell me before this trip that the “food” here – if I avoided chain restaurants – was “fabulous” — well, I understand what she was intending by her comments, but I did have some interesting experiences. The first was the steak dinner P & I had last night in red bank – I mean I know we both tend to be a little frisky when it comes to spending when we are traveling, particularly when we are out trying new places, but the bill including tip was over 300$ thats a tad high even for us. While the food was good, some of it quite good, it still seemed a little bit higher than the value. Today, also we sort of got overcharged for food – which apparently included an over priced tip into the bill, where the service was lacking. Its not the food was “bad” its just it wasn’t as good as the other stuff I’ve had, and certainly hard to justify for the price.

Still have a few other “things” I want to try out while we are here, not the least of which is a slice of true NY style pizza. — I’ve also been told to have cheesecake at Carnegie deli.

Some other quote/impressions from my journal below:

~ Day 1 – Drank enough last night at dinner to knock me out 🙂
~ so so so many people
~ P = weird dreams
~ me = many interruptions
~ busy –> always in motion
~ sunrise in NY = earlier
~ Too many cars makes for sickening cab rides
~ too many heartbeats = too much chaos = nausea

~ Day 2 – Being thankful is a coping mechanism here
~ They spray deodorants to mask the smells of life … clog the pores & toxin increases… its like picking up one grain of sand to clean up the beach
~ missing time = long delays (we missed the first ferry yesterday by 2 minutes)
~ they rent bikes all over the place… but you have to return to the same place as you pick them up?
~ so many confusing conflicting thoughts
~ Red bank notes:
~ Too much steak (42 oz we split)
~ Too much money (300$)
~ waitress was really named Britany
~ cloggers in the street? They were good?
~ Cab Company took 45 minutes to pick us up after we called? (Charging too much in terms of time)
~ racist cab driver
~ Starbucks across from Secret Stash 🙂
~ got to see my favorite comic men people
~ People on the ferry are very very trusting
~ why do NY peeps take bags full of trash from the NJ beach and put in ferry trashcans??? Saw like 10+ peeps do this
~ Everyone on the ferry buying the overpriced greasy ferry cheese pizza.
~ everyone drinking and drinking and drinking
~ tab water in NY isn’t bad? how weird is that/!?
~ Staten Island bridge & Connie Island all light up at night are beautiful

~~~~~~~~~~
Thats enough for now, sufficed to say– Definitely get the “NY state of mind” now…