New York Minute
It appears that it's been six days since my last post, which is a result of being on vacation and not having that magic combination of alone time and constant internet access...probably a good thing. But I should probably recap my trip to this point...the last time I wrote, I was in Cleveland, so lots has happened (relatively speaking). However, especially with Daylight Savings Time, I find my hourglass running out of sand on this trip and there's still a lot to do before I leave tomorrow. I'm currently in my hotel room here in New York but soon must shower and get to Times Square. So bulletpoints it is:
- Syracuse is still a great city. However, as much as I love it for nostalgic and general reasons, I don't know if I could live there (or anywhere in upstate New York) for more than a little bit. It's strange: I'm not someone who goes out every night (or every weekend...) or basks in the company of others all the time, but I still like being in a big city (sorry, alleged "city" of Auburn). I still maintain that I want to own a home in Syracuse when I'm rich and famous, but I'd probably only be there for a few weeks out of a year.
- Upstate New York is a very pretty place, but it's also weird to have to negotiate country roads to get places. Also, snow is cold, albeit pretty.
- It was very good to see Jim and Jennie again, along with their two kids. It was also a sad reminder that they don't live in Los Angeles anymore, even if it did feel like little to no time had passed. They have a lovely home, though, and it seems like a nice place for kids to grow up (the house and the "city"). And yes, the baby present is still coming and they will love it.
- I do love Wegmans. With my whole heart.
- Why do tiny airports like Syracuse Airport have free wi-fi internet access while big places like LAX and LaGuardia make you pay?
- I love New York City. However, I do see that it's not the perfect place that I sometimes remember it being when I'm in Los Angeles. In LA, one rarely has to see people and one gets soft in a variety of ways...but in New York, one always sees people and it can be maddening, which can then lead to an edginess (I was going to say "it makes one hard," but that sounds wrong). I enjoy the relative ease of subways, particularly when drunk, but I hate waiting for them, standing on them amidst a crushing crowd, not being able to control the temperature of them, the steamy heat of the tunnels, the disgusting poles one holds, being held between stations without any control over the situation, and the fact that you can't easily get from Williamsburg to Park Slope without going back into Manhattan. That doesn't mean that I suddenly love to drive everywhere again, but there is a certain charm to getting in one's car and controlling the situation (mostly).
- Watchmen is a good movie that I still give a "B+", but I see how it's a bit misguided in some ways. I missed the part at the end of the book wherein Ozymandias asked Dr. Manhattan if he did the right thing. Instead, in the movie, Ozymandias kind of just says shit out loud, answering a question no one asked: "I feel bad for everyone, but I live with that." Also, the fact that the heroes that aren't Dr. Manhattan are able to take punishing beatings and fly across rooms when punched and jump fifty feet from a building and land on their feet with little to no effort...it does seem to miss the point of the book. But overall, I still basically feel like, yep, that's pretty much Watchmen up there on the screen. I wasn't blown away as I was with Dark Knight (the movie to which Watchmen keeps getting compared), but overall, I have to respect Zack Snyder's ability to get this movie made the way it is.
- He's Just Not That Into You, on the other hand (which I saw as part of an unintentional double feature with Watchmen), was not good. Damn, it was long and it felt like the Schindler's List of romantic comedies. I said that to some friends afterwards and they asked me why I felt that way, and all I could do was sputter about it being "depressing." Well, yes, calling it the "Schindler's List of romantic comedies" is hyperbole for effect, but it was still depressing...but on a personal, specific-to-me level. Maybe that's because I identified with the awkward, foolish girl who threw herself out there, only to watch her buck the odds to have a happy romantic ending. I guess the movie made me feel bad because it wasn't so much about "dating is hard, but it's okay" as it was about "dating is hard, but you get a happy ending when you find someone, just like these characters all did...but you have to find someone and have meet-cutes and fun stories to tell and no one has to resort to JDate or sad blind dates that go nowhere." Blah...I was hoping for a movie that would make me feel better about dating and being single, and instead, it was a movie about all the same trite bullshit that happens in the worst romantic comedies.
- Also, I saw Watchmen in IMAX...I had never seen a movie in IMAX before, so it was quite the experience. It's interesting, though: it seems like they just blow up the 35mm print to enormous size, so while it's huge, I feel like you lose some detail and/or the contrast gets fucked up. I mean, it was cool and I'll probably seek IMAX screenings out in the future, but it didn't make the movie look better necessarily...just bigger. Maybe it was different with The Dark Knight in IMAX, as it had portions that were specifically shot in 70mm.
- I love food in New York. Everyone seems to unanimously agree that LA has better sushi...and I don't really like sushi.
- It's been good to see my friends...I don't know if I can make a judgment call and say "oh, it was better to come now than at New Year's because of x, y and z," but I do know that I wouldn't have seen Kalin had I come at New Year's, and it was very good to see him. It's been good to see everyone...it's nice to be reminded that I have friends, which is something I often forget in Los Angeles. I like game nights and Sunday dinners and drinking outings and random Hoboken parties and the like...I know one might suggest that I find that sort of thing in Los Angeles, but it's not easy, particularly since LA is notoriously difficult for meeting people.
- Speaking of random Hoboken parties, Andrea and I went to a St. Patrick's Day parade/party on Saturday out there. No, it wasn't actually St. Patrick's Day, but tell that to thousands of New Yorkers/New Jersians (?). I guess it's a Hoboken tradition to celebrate prior to the day itself. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and was apparently like a college party, according to Andrea (I went to college parties, but an NYU party is different than a UF party...). I had about eight beers and then felt like my bladder was going to explode on the PATH train back to Manhattan. But yeah, lots of fun...I also got to flirt with a cute girl for a while, only to discover that she had a husband (and a cancer-eating dragon tattoo). Also, there was a drunk girl on the street and her friend standing over her yelling "You're ruining it!" Good times.
- I can't remember the word, but we learned the word for "speaking badly about someone in a biography" last night. It's my new favorite word.
I think that's all for now. I should get going and start my last day here in the city...tomorrow I return to Los Angeles and then back to work on Wednesday. I don't know how I feel about any of that.
