Four fast days in the city
I recently took another trip to New York City, during which I was so busy that I didn't post journal entries while I was there. It's only now that I'm sitting down to write about it.
Before I start talking about my trip though, I need to say for the record why I went on the trip, aside from the usual joy of NYC. I think everyone who reads my LJ will already know that I lost my Granddaddy on October 11th. His passing was expected, but no less sad for being expected. I felt that I might be at a loss once everyone left after the funeral, with the shock of going from 24-hour-a-day eldercare to having very little to do. My plan, right now, is that I will stay at home at least through the holiday season, to give myself some time to rest and de-stress, and then I'll decide what I want to do next.
In the meantime though, I wanted to visit New York. And now, I shall document my trip for my readers and also for myself, so when I look back on this journal entry years from now, I can remind myself of what I did Nov 6--10, 2015.
So I flew out from RDU on Friday, Nov 6th and landed at LGA, and took the usual combo of bus and subway to get to Chelsea International Hostel, where I was staying. (I nearly had a heart attack late the night before when I realized that I'd left my passport at home, which is supposedly required to check in. Turns out my NC driver's license worked just fine.) That first afternoon, I did little more than settle in, rest a bit from my travels, and then get ready to see Allegiance on Broadway that night.
I really enjoyed Allegiance and hope that it has a long run on Broadway. It's based on actor George Takei's personal experience of being sent to an internment camp, along with his family and thousands of other Japanese-Americans, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. This is a chapter of USA history that I don't remember ever reading about in any textbook during my school years. I'm sure the US government would rather forget that they ruined the lives of thousands of US citizens, for no reason other than they shared a heritage with the country that bombed us. But it happened, and Allegiance is the story of one family's experience during that time. The songs are great, it's a great mix of mostly drama with a little humor thrown in, and the cast (George Takei, Lea Salonga, Telly Leung in the lead roles) is amazing. I'd highly recommend it.
On Saturday, I got up and made my way to Metropolitan West, where an event called Book Riot Live was happening. This is an event I'd heard about months in advance, but didn't think much about it at the time because I had no plans to be in NYC at that time. Much later, after I'd booked my trip, I realized that Book Riot was in fact that same weekend and I could actually go!
This is the very first year for Book Riot, so it was small compared to what I’ve heard about many book conventions. But there was still plenty to see and do. There were tables with small publishing presses displaying their books, and other booths displaying book-centric merchandise or promoting other services related to writing and publishing.
When I arrived on Saturday morning, one of the first tables I visited was for Interlude Press, whose books I’m familiar with because the company was started by online acquaintances of mine. Although I’m not close friends with any of them, we all hang out in the same Internet circles. Three of IP’s authors were there that day, and I had fun talking to them about their books and the company in general. I wanted autographs from them, but I don’t own print copies of their books. I buy e-books almost exclusively these days. Prior to Book Riot, someone in the Facebook BR group suggested that for those readers who didn’t own print copies for authors to sign, bring along a permanent marker or metallic pen and have them sign your e-reader cover, or perhaps the tote bag that came with the convention, etc. So that’s what I did….brought along metallic markers and asked them to sign the cover of my Nook.
Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the tattoo chain. One of the Book Riot people walked around all day Saturday, giving out temporary tattoos. Each tattoo was a short sentence or single phrase from the first two chapters of Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, and after the participant had the tattoo on their forearm, the BR representative would take a picture of it. Later in the day, all the tattoo pictures were hung up, in order, across one long wall of the convention hall. So if you wanted, you could read the entire first two chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale, one tattoo at a time, on the wall. It was a fun activity that gave people a starting point for conversation throughout the weekend, as we stood in line for autographs or sat next to each other at presentations. “What does your tattoo say?” was a common conversation opener.
Book Riot ran through Saturday and Sunday, and on each day there were multiple presentations on topics like choosing books for kids, banned/challenged books, how the publishing process works, adding more diversity in fiction, etc. I went to two of them on Saturday, three on Sunday, and all of them were at the very least entertaining, even if the amount of useful information varied from one topic to another.
After spending most of Saturday at Book Riot, I was in the theatre district by 8:00 pm to see that evening’s performance of Spring Awakening. This was the revival produced by a theatre company called Deaf West, who are based in CA, I think. This production started in CA and was so successful there that it transferred to Broadway for a limited run. I’d heard nothing but good things about it and knew it wouldn’t be playing the next time I visited NYC, so I was determined to see it on this visit. What makes this production unique is that several members of the cast are either deaf or hard of hearing, and the entire show is both sung/spoken and simultaneously performed in American Sign Language. For the actors who didn’t speak or sing their own parts, another performer doubled that role to be their voice. Spring Awakening also made Broadway history in another way….it’s the first to feature a performer who uses a wheelchair. All those factors-the ASL, the doubling of certain actors, an actress using a wheelchair-served to add even more distinction to a show that was already a pretty big standout, even in its first (non-ASL) Broadway run nearly a decade ago. At the end of the performance, the applause went on for much longer than I’m used to for Broadway shows, so I have to think the audience agreed with me about how amazing it is.
On Sunday, it was back to Metropolitan West for the second day of Book Riot. My friend Tammy, who I met while we were both working as nannies in NJ, came into the city on Sunday to attend Book Riot with me. We went to a morning presentation about choosing good books for kids, which of course was of particular interest to us since we work with kids. Afterward, we got in line to get an autograph from Laurie Halse Anderson. When I got up to the table, I showed her that I had her novel Speak on my Nook and asked her to add her signature to the ones already on the cover. I complimented the very distinct voice of her main character, saying that I struggle to make characters sound distinct from one another in my own writing. And her response was, ‘Oh, I used to struggle with that too, but here’s a word of advice to get past that.’ Her advice was a variation on turning off the inner editor, which I’ve heard before, but it was still a thrill to me to get writing advice from a published and highly-regarded author.
Tammy and I took pictures for each other at the signing table. The last presentation we attended together on Sunday was called Nerd Jeopardy and it was not meant to inform, only to entertain. And it did….the audience cracked up as the three contestants answered questions about a variety of books and pop culture in general. Overall, I considered Book Riot to be all kinds of fun, and I hope the founders are already planning Book Riot 2016.
After we finished with Book Riot, Tammy and I walked back toward Times Square and took in a movie on 42nd Street. For anyone wondering why I’d spend precious NYC time seeing a movie, thinking I can do that at home….well, not entirely true. The movie offerings in my hometown are limited, usually the latest Hollywood blockbuster releases. If I want to see foreign films, independent films, or anything considered vaguely ‘arthouse cinema,’ I can’t get those at home. Also, Tammy enjoys movies as much as I do, and when we lived close to each other in NJ, seeing movies together on the weekend was kind of our thing. So seeing a movie together when I visit NYC makes sense for us.
Anyway, we saw Suffragette, which is about what you would expect. It’s set in England in the 1910s and stars Carey Mulligan as the main character. I liked it pretty well, but the movie ends in a rather odd place, making me feel like it was good as far as it went but it could have gone further.
After seeing Tammy off at Port Authority to take a train back to NJ, I went in search of one of the three cinemas in all of New York City that was playing another movie, called Room. Yes, I saw two movies in one evening….see my previous comment about certain movies not being available to me at home and also consider that my four days in NYC were very, very busy. It just turned out that the best opportunity I had to see the movies I wanted to see in the city, was on Sunday evening after Book Riot.
Room was a movie that I really, really wanted to see, since I’d read the book and it was one of those stories that I just couldn’t put down. The movie is one of those rare cinematic creatures that managed to be just as good as the book, due largely to the incredible acting by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as a mother and son confined to one small room by the mother’s abductor. I heard after the movie (in the women’s restroom, so a completely reliable source) that there’s been talk of Jacob Tremblay being nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this movie, which would make him one of the youngest nominees ever. I fully expect that Brie Larson will be nominated as well. I’m really glad I was able to see Room while in the city and didn’t have to wait for it to come out on DVD or iTunes.
On Monday, I woke up to a post on the Book Riot Facebook group that there had been a shooting at Penn Station and for everyone traveling home that day to please be careful. Within five minutes I’d gotten a message from my best friend asking me to check in, since she knew that I’d planned to take a train (departing from Penn) out to NJ that day. After telling her I was okay, I also sent a message to my mother to let her know I was nowhere near Penn Station at the time. After a bit of research, I found out that the shooting actually took place a couple blocks away from Penn, not in the station itself. I only deliberated changing my plans for a few minutes before deciding to proceed, reasoning that there would probably be extra security at the station after an incident nearby and it was likely safer than on a typical day. And I was right….I got to Penn and there were National Guards everywhere throughout the station.
So I boarded a train to NJ and got off in the same town where I worked my last full time nanny job. The plan for the day was to have lunch with one of my online friends, neyronrose, and socialize with her a bit, then that evening I’d go to my former employer’s house to visit with the family there.
The visit with neyronrose was fun. We didn’t really do anything special, just had lunch while we talked, then continued talking while we meandered through a small shopping center, stopped to sit on a bench for a while, and eventually ended up at the public library so we could get online for a bit. But we were able to talk about in person all the things we would normally only chat about online, like our shared fandoms and books we’ve both read, etc.
It turned out that she needed to head back home sooner than I anticipated, because she wanted to miss the evening rush hour traffic. I wasn’t scheduled to meet with my nanny family for a couple more hours, so I called Tammy, who lived close by, and she came to hang out with me for a while longer. We walked around town, stopped in a French café & bakery for hot chocolate and a snack, and meandered through a used book store, all the while discussing the difficulties of searching for a nanny job. She’s currently on the job hunt and I expect to be soon, so the topic is on both our minds.
When it was time to visit my former nanny family, I said good-bye to Tammy and she dropped me off at their house. I walked up the steps to the porch and greeted the person who was getting the trash cans to take them to curb for pick up the next day….only to find that I was talking to the new owner of the house. Turns out that the family I worked for at that address had moved over the summer, and I never got the message my former boss sent to notify me. After a rather confused discussion with the new owner, and a phone call to my former boss, it was straightened out and I walked a few blocks to my former charge’s grandmother’s house, and she drove me to over to the new address. After that interesting start to the evening, the visit itself felt almost anti-climactic, but I had fun seeing their new home and hearing all about my former charge’s new school and his travels over the summer.
And then….back to the city to fall into bed, and up the next morning to pack and figure out the best way to get to JFK airport. I ended up using the Uber car service. It was my first time trying Uber and I liked it, so I’ll probably use it again, finances allowing. I flew back to RDU, was picked up by my BFF, and spent the next couple days at her house, just trying to catch up on sleep and hanging out with her.
All in all, it was a great trip, though a very quick one. And now….I’m staying at home for a few more weeks at least, and will take the time to figure out what to do with my life next. I’m leaning toward moving to NYC, and giving a try to living there instead of just visiting. But there are also other options I’m considering, so we’ll just have to see where I end up.
Till next time…..
Before I start talking about my trip though, I need to say for the record why I went on the trip, aside from the usual joy of NYC. I think everyone who reads my LJ will already know that I lost my Granddaddy on October 11th. His passing was expected, but no less sad for being expected. I felt that I might be at a loss once everyone left after the funeral, with the shock of going from 24-hour-a-day eldercare to having very little to do. My plan, right now, is that I will stay at home at least through the holiday season, to give myself some time to rest and de-stress, and then I'll decide what I want to do next.
In the meantime though, I wanted to visit New York. And now, I shall document my trip for my readers and also for myself, so when I look back on this journal entry years from now, I can remind myself of what I did Nov 6--10, 2015.
So I flew out from RDU on Friday, Nov 6th and landed at LGA, and took the usual combo of bus and subway to get to Chelsea International Hostel, where I was staying. (I nearly had a heart attack late the night before when I realized that I'd left my passport at home, which is supposedly required to check in. Turns out my NC driver's license worked just fine.) That first afternoon, I did little more than settle in, rest a bit from my travels, and then get ready to see Allegiance on Broadway that night.
I really enjoyed Allegiance and hope that it has a long run on Broadway. It's based on actor George Takei's personal experience of being sent to an internment camp, along with his family and thousands of other Japanese-Americans, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. This is a chapter of USA history that I don't remember ever reading about in any textbook during my school years. I'm sure the US government would rather forget that they ruined the lives of thousands of US citizens, for no reason other than they shared a heritage with the country that bombed us. But it happened, and Allegiance is the story of one family's experience during that time. The songs are great, it's a great mix of mostly drama with a little humor thrown in, and the cast (George Takei, Lea Salonga, Telly Leung in the lead roles) is amazing. I'd highly recommend it.
On Saturday, I got up and made my way to Metropolitan West, where an event called Book Riot Live was happening. This is an event I'd heard about months in advance, but didn't think much about it at the time because I had no plans to be in NYC at that time. Much later, after I'd booked my trip, I realized that Book Riot was in fact that same weekend and I could actually go!
This is the very first year for Book Riot, so it was small compared to what I’ve heard about many book conventions. But there was still plenty to see and do. There were tables with small publishing presses displaying their books, and other booths displaying book-centric merchandise or promoting other services related to writing and publishing.
When I arrived on Saturday morning, one of the first tables I visited was for Interlude Press, whose books I’m familiar with because the company was started by online acquaintances of mine. Although I’m not close friends with any of them, we all hang out in the same Internet circles. Three of IP’s authors were there that day, and I had fun talking to them about their books and the company in general. I wanted autographs from them, but I don’t own print copies of their books. I buy e-books almost exclusively these days. Prior to Book Riot, someone in the Facebook BR group suggested that for those readers who didn’t own print copies for authors to sign, bring along a permanent marker or metallic pen and have them sign your e-reader cover, or perhaps the tote bag that came with the convention, etc. So that’s what I did….brought along metallic markers and asked them to sign the cover of my Nook.
Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the tattoo chain. One of the Book Riot people walked around all day Saturday, giving out temporary tattoos. Each tattoo was a short sentence or single phrase from the first two chapters of Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, and after the participant had the tattoo on their forearm, the BR representative would take a picture of it. Later in the day, all the tattoo pictures were hung up, in order, across one long wall of the convention hall. So if you wanted, you could read the entire first two chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale, one tattoo at a time, on the wall. It was a fun activity that gave people a starting point for conversation throughout the weekend, as we stood in line for autographs or sat next to each other at presentations. “What does your tattoo say?” was a common conversation opener.
Book Riot ran through Saturday and Sunday, and on each day there were multiple presentations on topics like choosing books for kids, banned/challenged books, how the publishing process works, adding more diversity in fiction, etc. I went to two of them on Saturday, three on Sunday, and all of them were at the very least entertaining, even if the amount of useful information varied from one topic to another.
After spending most of Saturday at Book Riot, I was in the theatre district by 8:00 pm to see that evening’s performance of Spring Awakening. This was the revival produced by a theatre company called Deaf West, who are based in CA, I think. This production started in CA and was so successful there that it transferred to Broadway for a limited run. I’d heard nothing but good things about it and knew it wouldn’t be playing the next time I visited NYC, so I was determined to see it on this visit. What makes this production unique is that several members of the cast are either deaf or hard of hearing, and the entire show is both sung/spoken and simultaneously performed in American Sign Language. For the actors who didn’t speak or sing their own parts, another performer doubled that role to be their voice. Spring Awakening also made Broadway history in another way….it’s the first to feature a performer who uses a wheelchair. All those factors-the ASL, the doubling of certain actors, an actress using a wheelchair-served to add even more distinction to a show that was already a pretty big standout, even in its first (non-ASL) Broadway run nearly a decade ago. At the end of the performance, the applause went on for much longer than I’m used to for Broadway shows, so I have to think the audience agreed with me about how amazing it is.
On Sunday, it was back to Metropolitan West for the second day of Book Riot. My friend Tammy, who I met while we were both working as nannies in NJ, came into the city on Sunday to attend Book Riot with me. We went to a morning presentation about choosing good books for kids, which of course was of particular interest to us since we work with kids. Afterward, we got in line to get an autograph from Laurie Halse Anderson. When I got up to the table, I showed her that I had her novel Speak on my Nook and asked her to add her signature to the ones already on the cover. I complimented the very distinct voice of her main character, saying that I struggle to make characters sound distinct from one another in my own writing. And her response was, ‘Oh, I used to struggle with that too, but here’s a word of advice to get past that.’ Her advice was a variation on turning off the inner editor, which I’ve heard before, but it was still a thrill to me to get writing advice from a published and highly-regarded author.
Tammy and I took pictures for each other at the signing table. The last presentation we attended together on Sunday was called Nerd Jeopardy and it was not meant to inform, only to entertain. And it did….the audience cracked up as the three contestants answered questions about a variety of books and pop culture in general. Overall, I considered Book Riot to be all kinds of fun, and I hope the founders are already planning Book Riot 2016.
After we finished with Book Riot, Tammy and I walked back toward Times Square and took in a movie on 42nd Street. For anyone wondering why I’d spend precious NYC time seeing a movie, thinking I can do that at home….well, not entirely true. The movie offerings in my hometown are limited, usually the latest Hollywood blockbuster releases. If I want to see foreign films, independent films, or anything considered vaguely ‘arthouse cinema,’ I can’t get those at home. Also, Tammy enjoys movies as much as I do, and when we lived close to each other in NJ, seeing movies together on the weekend was kind of our thing. So seeing a movie together when I visit NYC makes sense for us.
Anyway, we saw Suffragette, which is about what you would expect. It’s set in England in the 1910s and stars Carey Mulligan as the main character. I liked it pretty well, but the movie ends in a rather odd place, making me feel like it was good as far as it went but it could have gone further.
After seeing Tammy off at Port Authority to take a train back to NJ, I went in search of one of the three cinemas in all of New York City that was playing another movie, called Room. Yes, I saw two movies in one evening….see my previous comment about certain movies not being available to me at home and also consider that my four days in NYC were very, very busy. It just turned out that the best opportunity I had to see the movies I wanted to see in the city, was on Sunday evening after Book Riot.
Room was a movie that I really, really wanted to see, since I’d read the book and it was one of those stories that I just couldn’t put down. The movie is one of those rare cinematic creatures that managed to be just as good as the book, due largely to the incredible acting by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as a mother and son confined to one small room by the mother’s abductor. I heard after the movie (in the women’s restroom, so a completely reliable source) that there’s been talk of Jacob Tremblay being nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this movie, which would make him one of the youngest nominees ever. I fully expect that Brie Larson will be nominated as well. I’m really glad I was able to see Room while in the city and didn’t have to wait for it to come out on DVD or iTunes.
On Monday, I woke up to a post on the Book Riot Facebook group that there had been a shooting at Penn Station and for everyone traveling home that day to please be careful. Within five minutes I’d gotten a message from my best friend asking me to check in, since she knew that I’d planned to take a train (departing from Penn) out to NJ that day. After telling her I was okay, I also sent a message to my mother to let her know I was nowhere near Penn Station at the time. After a bit of research, I found out that the shooting actually took place a couple blocks away from Penn, not in the station itself. I only deliberated changing my plans for a few minutes before deciding to proceed, reasoning that there would probably be extra security at the station after an incident nearby and it was likely safer than on a typical day. And I was right….I got to Penn and there were National Guards everywhere throughout the station.
So I boarded a train to NJ and got off in the same town where I worked my last full time nanny job. The plan for the day was to have lunch with one of my online friends, neyronrose, and socialize with her a bit, then that evening I’d go to my former employer’s house to visit with the family there.
The visit with neyronrose was fun. We didn’t really do anything special, just had lunch while we talked, then continued talking while we meandered through a small shopping center, stopped to sit on a bench for a while, and eventually ended up at the public library so we could get online for a bit. But we were able to talk about in person all the things we would normally only chat about online, like our shared fandoms and books we’ve both read, etc.
It turned out that she needed to head back home sooner than I anticipated, because she wanted to miss the evening rush hour traffic. I wasn’t scheduled to meet with my nanny family for a couple more hours, so I called Tammy, who lived close by, and she came to hang out with me for a while longer. We walked around town, stopped in a French café & bakery for hot chocolate and a snack, and meandered through a used book store, all the while discussing the difficulties of searching for a nanny job. She’s currently on the job hunt and I expect to be soon, so the topic is on both our minds.
When it was time to visit my former nanny family, I said good-bye to Tammy and she dropped me off at their house. I walked up the steps to the porch and greeted the person who was getting the trash cans to take them to curb for pick up the next day….only to find that I was talking to the new owner of the house. Turns out that the family I worked for at that address had moved over the summer, and I never got the message my former boss sent to notify me. After a rather confused discussion with the new owner, and a phone call to my former boss, it was straightened out and I walked a few blocks to my former charge’s grandmother’s house, and she drove me to over to the new address. After that interesting start to the evening, the visit itself felt almost anti-climactic, but I had fun seeing their new home and hearing all about my former charge’s new school and his travels over the summer.
And then….back to the city to fall into bed, and up the next morning to pack and figure out the best way to get to JFK airport. I ended up using the Uber car service. It was my first time trying Uber and I liked it, so I’ll probably use it again, finances allowing. I flew back to RDU, was picked up by my BFF, and spent the next couple days at her house, just trying to catch up on sleep and hanging out with her.
All in all, it was a great trip, though a very quick one. And now….I’m staying at home for a few more weeks at least, and will take the time to figure out what to do with my life next. I’m leaning toward moving to NYC, and giving a try to living there instead of just visiting. But there are also other options I’m considering, so we’ll just have to see where I end up.
Till next time…..