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May. 16th, 2007 11:15 pmThis past weekend, my brother, M and I made a quick trip to New York city for a little adventure. We drove down on Friday night, after we'd all gotten out of work, and stayed at one of the five Marriots in Tarrytown. I drove my brother's new Saturn hybrid (as he hates driving at night) and M sat in the back seat and wrote BSG fic and chatted on the phone with ehakus.
Saturday, we caught the train into Grand Central, met ehakus and her date for lunch (so-so Oyako Donburi), chatted for a bit, and then went to see the first part of Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia trilogy. The performance was truly excellent and I think the script is quite good, too. Billy Crudup as Vissarion Belinsky stole much of the show.
Then, we all went down to the stage door to see if we could say hello to some of the actors. (My brother, in particular, wanted to meet Jennifer Ehle, so I went down and found out where the door was during intermission. Sadly, she must have bolted from the theater after the curtain, as we missed her.)
Then, M and E went off and fangirled for awhile while my brother and I attempted to meet a friend of his for dinner, but failed. So we had a bite, got the train, picked up the car, found E's house, met the dogs, took pictures, got in the car, drove home, and then went to bed. Sunday, I got up and worked. When I got home, there was Midnight. It was a weird game, as we were down two players, and two of us were extremely sleepy, so despite constant peril and ending on a cliffhanger, (in which I'll almost certainly die) things felt rather diffused. Cirrussundog came up with a really clever idea, though, for how to walk down a hallway crowded with ghosts without them killing us all.
The New York trip was cool, but somewhat stressful, as I wanted to balance my wife's desire to meet and spend time with her internet pal E and my brother's desire to plan things out very carefully because of his anxiety about going to New York. It all worked out well, I'm glad we went, but only while watching the play was I aware that I was doing something that I wanted to do. Oh, wait, and when I killed some time browsing at B&N, and picked up a couple of books, one of which I started reading: Zodiac by Neal Stephenson. A fun book, which I wish I'd read back in 88 when it was published. It made me a little nostalgic for the late 80s/early 90s, but it was fun, smart, and quick. Grabbing it and reading it as I did took me back to the 80s in another way, too: it's how I used to read novels, especially SF back when I was stressed and wanting to immerse myself in a distraction. It felt satisfying to read, and it was nice to re-experience the deep pleasure I used to feel so easily in reading, in absorbing myself in a book, learning a bit about the world, and engaging my imagination. To play, really, in a way that I don't so much, anymore. I'm a happier person, much more of a man, than I was back then, and I have more going on in my life, so I don't need it the way I used to do. But, it's still a good coping mechanism in the short term, and it was nice to have something to read on the train. (Oh, and riding the train made me miss commuting to work on mass transit. Not the long-ass go work in Boston bit, or working in some office there, but the built in time to sit and read bit.)
And now, supper.
Saturday, we caught the train into Grand Central, met ehakus and her date for lunch (so-so Oyako Donburi), chatted for a bit, and then went to see the first part of Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia trilogy. The performance was truly excellent and I think the script is quite good, too. Billy Crudup as Vissarion Belinsky stole much of the show.
Then, we all went down to the stage door to see if we could say hello to some of the actors. (My brother, in particular, wanted to meet Jennifer Ehle, so I went down and found out where the door was during intermission. Sadly, she must have bolted from the theater after the curtain, as we missed her.)
Then, M and E went off and fangirled for awhile while my brother and I attempted to meet a friend of his for dinner, but failed. So we had a bite, got the train, picked up the car, found E's house, met the dogs, took pictures, got in the car, drove home, and then went to bed. Sunday, I got up and worked. When I got home, there was Midnight. It was a weird game, as we were down two players, and two of us were extremely sleepy, so despite constant peril and ending on a cliffhanger, (in which I'll almost certainly die) things felt rather diffused. Cirrussundog came up with a really clever idea, though, for how to walk down a hallway crowded with ghosts without them killing us all.
The New York trip was cool, but somewhat stressful, as I wanted to balance my wife's desire to meet and spend time with her internet pal E and my brother's desire to plan things out very carefully because of his anxiety about going to New York. It all worked out well, I'm glad we went, but only while watching the play was I aware that I was doing something that I wanted to do. Oh, wait, and when I killed some time browsing at B&N, and picked up a couple of books, one of which I started reading: Zodiac by Neal Stephenson. A fun book, which I wish I'd read back in 88 when it was published. It made me a little nostalgic for the late 80s/early 90s, but it was fun, smart, and quick. Grabbing it and reading it as I did took me back to the 80s in another way, too: it's how I used to read novels, especially SF back when I was stressed and wanting to immerse myself in a distraction. It felt satisfying to read, and it was nice to re-experience the deep pleasure I used to feel so easily in reading, in absorbing myself in a book, learning a bit about the world, and engaging my imagination. To play, really, in a way that I don't so much, anymore. I'm a happier person, much more of a man, than I was back then, and I have more going on in my life, so I don't need it the way I used to do. But, it's still a good coping mechanism in the short term, and it was nice to have something to read on the train. (Oh, and riding the train made me miss commuting to work on mass transit. Not the long-ass go work in Boston bit, or working in some office there, but the built in time to sit and read bit.)
And now, supper.
