I’m in New York! Hah!

I left work early yesterday at three, picked Aimee up, and we ran some errands. Then we drove to Des Moines, checked into the Holiday Inn across the street from the airport, went out for mediocre pizza, went back to the room, talk-talk-talk, passed out. We woke up at 4:45 this morning for a 5:30 shuttle to the United Gate for our 6:30 flight to Chicago.

Brett called me at 5:20 and was shocked that I was awake already; he wanted to know where the sleeping bags were. Pretty funny, considering he’d cleverly packed the night before and spent the night in town at Bo’s to get an early start, then had to drive back out to the farm to get sleeping bags, poor guy.

Anyway. Airport security let me bring my knitting needles on board, but they took my Bic lighter. “I want to know how exactly they expect me to hijack a plane with a fucking ligher. Macguyver could do it, but I certainly don’t know how!” I told Aimee. She laughed.

They left me FIVE SHARP BAMBOO KNITTING NEEDLES, and took my lighter! Go fucking figure.

We had an hour-and-change layover in Chi-town. We ate breakfast at Chilis (their potatoes were awesome) and caught our next flight to Newark.

Steven & Aimee in the sky train from Newark

Steven met us at the airport and we took a lightrail and a train to Penn Station. He lives a few blocks from it. His apartment is tiny and cute and has an adorable little balcony. We left our luggage here and went out for Italian food (he and I had glasses of house red wine with our pasta, yum). Then we took the subway to Central Park, where we met up with a fairly large group of people and rehearsed for a few hours. The group was really fun. I ran my solo twice and pretty much sucked both times, but I’ll have it ready by the weekend when we record.

I’d called Debbie from the restaurant, and she called me back during rehearsal. Eventually it was decided she’d meet us at Steven’s, and we three came back here. Debbie found us on the street outside the little store around the corner we’d stopped at to get beer and wine coolers and juice and water and I promptly hugged the shit out of her.

She and I sat on Steven’s balcony and raged for a few hours, covering our marriages, careers, fertility issues, blah blah blah et al. My God but I love that woman. (Debbie is my only friend remaining from high school. She’s an amazing human being. She’s beautiful, smart, deep, sensitive, strong, and fabulous on so many levels, you just couldn’t possibly believe it.)

After awhile the other three joined us, and we just talked and drank and smoked and talked. Debbie finally left a little past eleven because she has to work tomorrow.

And then it rained like hell for awhile and cooled off somewhat while Steven and his roommate and Aimee and I sat on the balcony some more.

Steven’s roommate is adorable. I brought my Amma doll with me, and when I handed her the doll she promptly burst into tears. She knows of Amma, even though she’s never had darshan, and the whole episode was sweet as hell.

Aimee’s decided she has to sleep on the floor in the kitchen, so I get the futon in the living room to myself. I think I’m going to go check it out. It’s twelve-thirty, and I’ve been up since five.