American Utopia

 Today started slow.  A family of weary travelers. With blackout curtains.  Goodness those things trick one into thinking it's still an appropriate time to snooze.  I'm a 5:30 waker at home and today I slept until 7:30.  Jet Lag mixed with Time Square.  It's a recipe for drool on the pillow.  Of course I would never drool on a hotel pillow and for this story, we will assume no one else has ever drooled on this pillow I am leaning on.  And. Now I won't be able to sleep because I have ruined hotel pillows forever.

Our morning took us on a train to Washington Square.  We started in a diner eating pancakes, Benedict, and oatmeal. It was much cooler today.  After eating, we walked up to Washington Square Park to take in the crowd for a while and to cruise around NYU.  Saw a most interesting man painting himself into a statue.  Creativity mixed with I don't know what.  We looked up Washington Square Park on TikTok and found him right away.  With 2.1 million views. Enjoy.

       

From there we made our way up toward Union Square to meet my friend Heather and to do some shopping and lunching. Fi got her fill of Brandy Melville and Mack got her fill of telling me how tired she was and how much she wanted to hurry and get back to the Nintendo store before it closed.  It's so awesome to have a friend in NY because it makes seeing the city fun when you do it with someone who knows it well and whom you can chit chat about high school with and escape your whining vacation child for a while. Oh and we hit Shake Shack for a burger and shake before heading off to hang with Patience and Fortitude for a bit at the NY Library. 

                             

Heather took us to a little secret spot inside Grand Central Station.  I'll leave it a secret but tell you it was pretty damn cool.  It's such a beautiful building. Beautiful enough to find a wedding party inside doing their photos.  This is where we had our final hugs and walked down different corridors. That's always the hard part of seeing friends. 

                               

Exhausted and knowing it was now time to trek to the Nintendo store. Mind you, it was closed the night before when we got there.  We had to a make sure we made it there.  We went to Starbucks, grabbed some caffeine, did a quick look upward to the top of the Chrysler building and then let our tired feet take us.

Success! We arrived at the Nintendo store only to find...a very long line to get in. She flipped out.  F-bombs. She didn't want to go. They were probably sold out of everything. They were going to close. And my personal favorite of the day...after telling her sister to shut-up..."I can live in shut-ups all day".  What the hell does that mean anyway?  I'll tell you what it meant.  It meant mommy had ammo to throw at her and make her start laughing at her ridiculousness and the cloud passed. She of course laughed hearing me say it aloud and we made it to the front of the line and then inside to buy the new Zelda game she has been saving up for.  

                    

After a rest for a couple hours in the hotel room, it was time to venture out for a show.  Of course we had to have dinner first. Back to the same little spot for pizza and a most interesting thing happened. We placed our order and were waiting for it to arrive. All the sudden...and this still makes no sense to me...Mack's water glass explodes. Glass everywhere. Water everywhere. The waitress was shocked. Either my child has telekinesis, pissed off a spirit, or the glass had a tiny crack just waiting to explode. I was hoping they would give us the shattered glass on a 12 year-old discount.  No such luck.  Full price and off to the show we went. 

We saw American Utopia by David Byrne and man was that an amazing show.  His old music was interwoven with his new music and his spoken words were enlightening and empowering. What an amazing human.  If you have HBO, you should watch it. I'm so glad we were able to take the girls to see it on stage.  I loved dancing with Mack holding my hand and exchanging stoked glances with Fi. At one point she locked arms with me while we were dancing.  It was really cool to enjoy something from my past with my future. I love how seeing art reminds me to seek out the creative parts of myself that somehow get buried. I was trying to explain it to Fiona how I feel so happy knowing I can share this type of culture with her and hopefully empower her to create whatever it is she feels inspired to create or be or do. Of course my to-do is go home and finish my book. 

Today was a good day. I'm happy to be here. I think I'm glad my part of the world is slower, but I'm happy to be in this part for a while. I think we all needed it.