No place like home

It's pretty incredible how, as disaffected New Yorkers, we often forget just how amazing our city is. I mean, I generally do the same thing every day...get up early, take the subway to school, do my work, maybe hit up a bar for happy hour, and then head home, to finish up the day's activities and prepare to start all over again. Sometimes we stop and appreciate the skyline from places like Astoria park, but most of the time I don't even bother to look up anymore and appreciate just how tall the skyscrapers are or how incredible it is that so many millions of people manage to coexist on an island that, in the end, isn't that big.

In short, I'm just as guilty as the average person of losing the sense of transcendence one can find in a city like New York. But then every once in a while something comes along that reminds me of how lucky I am. Getting trapped in the Queensboro tunnel sure isn't one of those things (haha), but rollerblading across the Queensboro Bridge and watching the sun rise over Manhattan definitely is. I regretted not having my camera with me this morning, but then again I was too busy paying attention to where I was going (and to not losing control on the downhill part of the big-ass suspension bridge) that I couldn't have really stopped anyway. But still, I don't think you can know New York until you've seen a sunrise from an outer borough. Truly amazing.

And perhaps you can't really know New York until you've roller bladed down second avenue, but that's another experience I could probably live without, haha. I couldn't find the entrance to the East Side trail and got stuck in the stop and go traffic of second ave for about 3/4 of a mile before I could work my way over the FDR and get to the trail. Once I got to the trail it was great though! All in all the ride in took me an hour and 40 minutes, although I bet if I did it right I could do it in an hour and 15. Just need to figure out how not to go twice around the barn to get to the house when exiting the bridge and heading for the river. humph.

As a side note, I think the other magical place in this city now is Times Square, the part with all the lawn chairs. It's another form of transcendence to sit there and feel the eery calm with all the insane billboards and ads flashing at you from every direction and knowing that you're in one of the most famous intersections in the world. I love it!

In other adventures, last Sunday we celebrated Isaac's birthday at this really cool bar called Frying Pan, which is located on an old boat at Pier 66 on the Hudson. I met Lisa and Sarah, and I think I look pretty damned good seeing as that just before meeting them I went rollerblading on the west side trail and took a SPECTACULAR spill. I had just gotten back from cleaning off all the dust from my clothes and washing out the burn on my hip and cut on my cheek (yes, it was a glorious fall). But you wouldn't even know!



And here's Jess and Isaac, the newlyweds (and birthday boy!)


Next up is a weekend of festivities surrounding Lisa's birthday, but before that I managed to talk Junette into doing a "tanilates" class with me in Astoria park tomorrow morning, HAHA. From what we can tell, it's a pilates class but sort of more about the tanning than the pilates!!! Hilarious.