New York Raises You to the Occasion - New York City, NY

When in New York, make like a New Yorker. In the few days that I have been here, I have already started walking faster and double-pressing “Door Close” elevator buttons more vigorously. A friend and now-native New Yorker calls them comfort buttons, anything that doesn’t actually send signals to the elevator or crosswalk, but makes the person feel more relieved and action-achieved by pressing it. I have no doubt I'll be recycling this term and will probably even accept originality credit occasionally.

The city really does seem tireless. I’ve been to New York before, but the sensory overload of Times Square still seems to augment the sparkliness of everything, albeit between weaving through sweaty tourists and over nasty puddles. It was so exciting to recognize locations from TV and movies when you least expected it, like passing by the Times Square bleachers from Spider-Man and a random park from White Collar (love). There's a lot of good stimulation here, if I can deflect the fear of missing out. We had some delicious food, which I am now obliged to show you, darn. And with some last minute finagling, we also caught an Off Broadway musical, a production that didn’t disprove the point that things are bigger and better in NYC. People do say that, don't they.

Friday Evening Me Time

Travel is entertaining but raises awareness to the plight that Friday evenings are a prime time to feel an affinity for something to do and people to be around, occurring most reliably when you momentarily have neither. This phenomenon occurred in college as well and after some deliberation, I partially attribute this to the adrenaline drop after a long week. It's limbo, the lag of expectations catching up to reality... not denying there’s also something there about knowing other people are out who will always stay out later than you.

I do love unwinding when I settle in, so there is only a key period to overcome while making the transition from people mode to me-time. Staying entertained helps. Of course, there's also this secondary issue of whether I ever want to leave chill-out-mode once I'm there, even to sleep or to rejoin productive society when it calls. I say this facetiously because the long-run optimization is yes I should, but sometimes, you have moments where you wonder, isn’t it rational to think on the margin?

Alas, that's all a bit of sophistry, so back to work it is.

A Very Empty Plane

This is not a drill, a recent flight from DC to New York looked like this for the duration of the flight - the back of the plane was empty. I haven't seen this often, having a flight with only about 15 people on board. A major upside was that most people got their own row, almost as if we were on a private jet - so this is me not complaining.

Black Dresses and Lots of Salmon: Family Vacation

Something that bothers my sisters about me is when I care about being classy. Maybe I can generalize that I’ve always liked nice things, as you’d assume everyone does, though my middle sister in particular seems to be the exception that proves the rule. I remember in third grade when we had a creative writing project, with a prompt to stretch the imagination. I described at length the “Ultimate Luxury Liner” which had a bowling alley extending the length of the ship on a lower level and a similarly expansive swimming pool up top. The bowling alley would certainly need to be near the bottom so that people who constantly drop balls wouldn’t rattle too many levels below them. Never mind that bowling balls would definitely end up in the gutter on any ship.

(I wish I had a picture of the essay, but it's long gone and on second thought, my handwriting was embarrassingly atrocious.)

Of course at that age, I had no concept of the real size of ships nor any concept whatsoever of why people would build large ships for entertainment. Now, some dozen years later, I am fortunate to have a stronger grasp of these sailing hotels from personal experience. Because in fact, my mom has progressively phased out non-cruise family vacations in recent years, which is a way of saying that she has been vacationing more during our vacations.

     

Compared to other summer cruises, this one was less sweltering by far and delightfully more nature-centric. Mountains, I realize, are conspicuously refreshing and if air could be called organic, this would be it. We saw a few animals, like brown bears and bald eagles, though I usually preferred reading a book to whale spotting as I hear the latter is even less eventful than fishing. The weather in June was fit for hiking, so we hiked and ate berries off of bushes along the way - very rugged. I temporarily acquired the ritual of breathing deeply, not because of the altitude but because I wanted to store up on clean air. A cruise to Alaska is something one and done for me, because if I get the chance, there are so many other places in the world to enjoy, but this was definitely among the most relaxing trips I’ve ever taken.