Mega Flare! A Final Fantasy Big Bang

So tired today. I went to sleep at a reasonable time but woke up at 330 and couldn't get back to sleep until more like 6 am. I reset my alarm so I could at least get SOME sleep, but of course then my body was convinced that we should be sleeping (and we absolutely should have been). I dreamed I was working at the job in the mall that I left 16 years ago and I was gutted to wake up and find out that I had not, in fact, done an entire day of work already. Sob.

My "I'm gonna sew!" energy just became "I'm gonna tidy my sewing area!" energy, and you know what, that's fine. I'm still debating the best use of the grey wool. I did my laundry on Saturday night, finally. Yesterday I put two threads into the cross stitch while I watched YouTube, and that has me lightly fired up to keep going. I was definitely hyper fixated before, and then burned out after what, 2.5 months? Maybe this will be a more sustainable pace lol.

The 100 day project starts officially on Sunday! I know I wanted to do cross stitch for it, and this morning on my walk to the train I decided I would set it at 1 hour per day. Primarily going to work on "A Summer Stroll", which honestly may take me the entire 100 days, but I have other stitches planned if it doesn't.

Yesterday I decided that I would go to bed early because I've been up from 3-5 AM every day for weeks (often with a nuclear hot flash), and I ended up falling asleep at like 9:30. I also woke up in the middle of the night, but not so completely that I was AWAKE. I was aware of the nuclear hot flash and feeling cold again, and not much else.

Really want to get back to sewing. My depression is not over, but doing things I like, like sewing, really ought to help. I was amused that I set out my autumn sewing plans and then proceeded to not touch my machine for 5 months. Good news though, it works for late winter/early spring sewing too. Onwards and upwards.

TOO EXCITED ALL WEEKEND TO SLEEP. Monday I set alarms for like 2:30 and 2:45 so that I would have enough to putter for a bit before picking up M and getting to the airport. Once there, a shuttle driver cut us off and said "don't walk! Get in!" and gave us a paper to remember where we parked. Easy peasy getting through security, we had lots of time to get a drink and snack.

Security and customs in City 2, where my local friends were a couple dozen people behind us. We had just enough time to eat and caffeinate again before we boarded for NYC. I napped for a bit. Arrived a little bit early thanks to good airstream, but the plane sat for a good 10 minutes because it was so early.

We figured out the train situation and took the subway into Manhattan. Spent several minutes trying to orient ourselves. Luckily the hotel was not far from the station, and we got settled in a teeny room with bunk beds and a private bath. It worked. We said often, we weren't there to visit the hotel.

Dinner at Bubba Gump's in Times Square, which one member of the party confidently started walking, 10-15 feet ahead of us, and took us too far out of the way. Then we were all super tired and went to bed.

It wasn't cold, hovering around freezing, but at night the wind would pick up and it was BRUTAL. We enjoyed watching some people clearing snow from the side of a road by shoveling it into said road.

TUESDAY
Our party got up at different times so we did our own things for the day. M and I walked to a Bagel Pub (fantastic!), then to Empire State Building, where we spent 90 mins or so touring the upper floor and outdoor portion. It was rather peaceful up so high, and offered great views of all sides. Personally I loved how much older architecture was there, how purpose-built even an 86 storey building was when it went up.

Back on the ground, we tootled up to Bryant Park and then the public library, which was BEAUTIFUL. Not much of the actual library we could see, the book rooms were largely closed off for research use. But they did have a nice gallery of collection items to view, including the OG Winnie the Pooh toys!

We went back to the hotel to drop off our small purchases before heading to the show. We unfortunately got hangry and left later than we wanted, especially since the other half of the party was still out and about (they went to the Museum of Modern Art) and we had all the tickets. Snagged a burger and ate it while we walked, because there were 8 million people in the shop and nobody knew what they wanted, or did but were waiting for a member of their party to confirm, and they weren't answering. HANGRY RAWR. Too peopley in that state, so we peaced out.

But we made it ahead of our friends before the doors opened. It's so different being in a theatre that has a dedicated show vs one that is adaptable to many. The lobby was maybe 8 feet wide and then we were in the theatre. The seats were small, but also larger than our season seats at our newer theatre in town. Usually M and I are touching, and for this show we weren't. We were about 6 rows back and y'all. I need a separate section to wax poetic about this. The show (Hadestown) was SO GOOD. M's local friend snagged us a spot at stage door, where only two cast members came out. Then the five of went to the local friend's favourite post-show bar, Hold Fast, which is run by a Canadian lol. We ended up staying out past 1 am. It was really nice.

WEDNESDAY
Bagels again, but at a slightly closer location that we didn't like as much. It was right in the middle of the garment district, and M had to hold me back a lot bc I sure did not have money or suitcase room for any of the shinies! They were busy, and didn't seem to know what was going on. Then we located a subway station and popped on to go visit the Museum of Natural History. We did not see nearly as much of it as we could have, and we said to ourselves, that is alright. We'll just have to come back another time.

Outside, we stopped for a street pretzel and then walked through Central Park from the side where we entered down to where the "zoo" was (as it was marked on Google Maps). Back to the hotel area where we went for tacos (authentic, and fucking delicious) and our next show, Wicked. We enjoyed it very much! Afterwards, we stopped into a store dedicated to various theatre shows and adjacent things. I found the costume books, including one that I have only ever seen scans from OOOOOOO AAAAAH.

THURSDAY
Met Trick downstairs to get some cash as they decided they wanted a Hadestown t-shirt but were leaving for Katsucon shortly after. Once M and I got going, we went back to the first Bagel Pub for our final breakfast there, and then hit the train line to go to Brooklyn to see the bridges. Fantastic views, the sun was out and it was warm in it (although still windy and bitter). Back in town, we went to the Strand bookstore and then Joe's Pizza nearby, which was delicious. In the city, we went into Grand Central to stare at the ceiling for awhile before going back to the hotel to charge phones and de-people for a hot minute.

I saw Hadestown again while M went to the show across the street. She did not get to see the principal cast member she wanted to see, but she ended up loving both the show and the understudy. Same experience at my stage door as on Tuesday, so I went to join hers to take photos for her. We chatted a bit with one of M's friends who'd flown in from the UK to see these shows, and then took ourselves out for a snack. We thought we'd just hang around as we wanted to see the displays in Times Square switch over to art for three minutes at 11:57. It was hard though, because the wind was the worst of the whole trip!

FRIDAY
We checked out around 10 and they were AWESOME about storing our luggage for a couple hours while we finished our trip at the Museum of Broadway. It was neat because the beginning and end took you through the stair wells and backstage areas of an actual theatre. Of course I loved all the costumes and it was SO HARD not to touch one of the Hamilton jackets that was on display. (It looked like wool. I wanted to touch.) Stopped off at Dunkins for our very last NYC meal, picked up our luggage and headed to the airport. We were rather early, but that gave us time to get through security and find our gate and rest for a bit before getting a pre-5-hour-flight meal. Coming home was tougher, much more peopley. We were both so overstimulated and so done with all the travel. Couldn't we just stay? Alas. I missed the turn off coming into the city and took a detour before dropping M off, and I got home just after 2 am.

Amazing trip. Over the course of the 5 days, we did 73k steps, saw 10 landmarks, ate 5 of the 6 things we wanted to eat, and within 48 hours we felt right at home. I even started to learn the language of all the honking drivers did. We are definitely going back, hopefully October 2027!