I am having a very tough time readjusting to being home after a wonderful trip to New York. I enjoyed very second of my time there and got to do many great things. It was great to see basketball at Madison Square Garden, a terrific show on Broadway and places like the Empire State Building and Central Park. While all of these things were great what I loved most about the city was the freedom. The idea that you could go anywhere at anytime. Our hotel was centrally located on 29th street and we were never more then a few blocks away from something great going on and many interesting people. As someone who never used to walk anywhere I also took great pride in traveling 12.5 miles in the chair during the day Friday.
Allow me to contrast this for a second with being home. I can guarantee you that I won't travel 12.5 miles in the chair during the next 60 days. Living on a dirt road with no sidewalks for miles there is no safe way to get around to get around the neighborhood. Back to being home alone all day and having no way to exit my own house it guarantees that during a 70 degree weather week I will be locked in the house between the hours of 8-4 everyday. This is what I struggle the idea that there is a world of endless possibilities that I thrive in and then in my daily life I am stuck in an empty with TV reruns even though I have no real world responsibilities. It is different when your older have a job, family and other stuff going on but I am stuck in this daily monotony solely because of my disability and that sucks.
What draws me to places like New York is not the bright lights but the idea that possibility is around every corner. After being there it is impossible to believe that anybody is supposed to live out there days on a dirt road left only to ponder the world around them. I miss the walks to get food and getting yelled at for not crossing the street fast enough more then anything else. That just doesn't happen here and don't thinking it's asking a lot to want that.
Now that you have allowed me to complain let me go on about the details of my trip. I left with Jackson from Providence on the 6:15 Amtrax train. It was an easy three and half ride that we passed by him kicking my ass in Scrabble. We arrived at Penn Station around 10 and had to wait half an hour for a ramp to get off the train. It usually doesn't take that long but the people there only heard wheelchair and brought up an actual wheelchair rather then a ramp. Penn Station is really big and hard to figure out so it took us awhile to figure out how to exit on street level. It was a quick two block walk to the hotel the Holiday Inn express where we waited for Matt to come and take us out. He arrived around 11pm and took us to the "Flying Puck" a bar right down the street. I downed two beer felt drunk already and got hit on by a Georgetown fan in a suit. He was giving Matt crap for being a Syracuse fan and really enjoyed touching my leg for some reason. Good to know I can draw attention if I ever have to switch teams and an interesting welcome to the city. We were feeling tired by the travel and left around 1:30 to unpack and get some sleep.
Thursday was Big East Tournament day with the marquee match up being Syracuse-Uconn at noon. Knowing that we made the short walk to Madison Square Garden to trade out the tickets I got on Stubhub. Sadly no one know where to send us because MSG was not in charge of handling tickets to the event. We were assured we would have no problems and went to grab a quick breakfast. We returned at 11:15 and were sent to guest services on the 6th floor who sent us to the 5th floor courtside entrance which got us really excited. The 5th floor guy looked at our tickets and basically laughed at us while sending us to the 9th floor nose bled section. The usher there had no idea where to send us and called for a supervisor. There was a wheelchair section in the 400s and we were sent there as the game was starting. The sight lines were pretty good up there similar to being in the roof boxes at a Red Sox game, but I was disappointed I couldn't pull off my seating upgrade magic.
The game was a good back and forth game that Syracuse pulled out in the last four minutes. They did not shoot great and as usual didn't rebound so it was no surprise to me when they lost the next day to Cincy. The arena was 70% percent Syracuse fans and we enjoyed making fun of the guys in front of us for swearing at the refs all game even though they did it a good job. The energy in the building kind of died for the second game with a good chunk of Syracuse fans leaving. Being in the 400's we had to take an elevator to try to find a bathroom. When we got off the elevator Jackson pointed out Pat Riley was right next to us. I wanted to talk to him but he was tied up in conversation and Jackson was having none of it. Apparently he has a personal code where he doesn't like bothering famous people. The second game was running past 4:30 and we were trying to meet Colleen for dinner before having to return for the night games. Georgetown was up 11 with 7:00 minutes left and made the executive decision to leave. We met up with Colleen a block later and she took us to a Cuban place Havana Central where Matt and her boyfriend John would meet us. We got there just as the game was going into overtime but the food and drinks were good so we didn't care that we missed it. After a very enjoyable dinner we headed back to the Garden.
We enjoyed the Marquette-Louisville game that Louisville won going away and decided to skip the USF-Notre Dame to go out with Matt. We decided to go to a basement comedy show at HA Comedy Club. I was very disappointed no one made a cripple joke since I was a foot in front of the stage and they made fun of the very ten people in the room. They were mostly drunk and foreign people but the best exchanges came from the last comedian putting a very drunk housewife heckler in her place. We left there after 2 and headed back to the hotel.
Friday was sightseeing day with Colleen and we met her at 10am for a walk to the Empire State Building. After getting our tickets we headed up to the 86th floor which really popped our ears. We let a nice family with Ginger Twins cut the line with us and headed out to see the fantastic view. While all this was going on we apparently missed a marriage proposal going on at the opposite side of the building. That would have been awesome to see so I was disappointed to miss it. We left about 45 minutes later and headed to Times Square Visitors Center to get a listing of Broadway shows. We went through the listing carefully we me pushing hard for "Once" and Jackson hoping for "Spiderman." We spent an hour making a list of 10-12 acceptable shows and headed out to look for tickets. Sadly "No Dogs Allowed" at our top 3 choices including "Once" and the "Lion King". When Memphis was pet friendly (cripple) and could give us four seats close together we pounced. After grabbing lunch at an Irish Pub, we then made the long journey to and through Central Park failing in our attempt to find worthy street artists. I really wanted to feed the ducks but apparently that is frowned upon. My chair was low on the power and would force us back to the hotel before going to the show. It was already 4:30 and we were an hour walk away so we lucky to find a bus I could get on to get us back to Midtown. While charging the chair we failed at several attempts of ordering Pizza before sending Jackson and fresh out of work Matt to go get it. After eating quickly Jackson Colleen and I headed out to meet John at the theater while Matt stayed behind to take a nap.
I encountered a broken foot plate on the way over but still made it with 10 minutes to spare. "Memphis" is a story of disc jockey Huey Calhoun who was first white guy to play black music in Memphis. He was a hard character to root for but the actor had good comic timing and the actress playing his black singer girlfriend was a really good performer. It was a funny show with good musical performances and served as a great introduction to Broadway for me. I highly enjoyed it and look forward to going back again. The show ended at 10:30 said goodbye to Colleen and John who had a parade in the morning and headed back to the hotel. We found Matt half asleep unaware of how longs plays were and not in the mood to go out. Jackson and I headed out to Upright Citizens Brigade Theater but "No Dogs Allowed". By now it was really cold and after searching one block in each direction for something to do we stopped for more pizza and headed back to the room shortly after 1am.
Saturday we had breakfast at the New Yorker Hotel before taking off for Penn Station to go home. I have already made plans to go back again when my mom goes for a few hours on April 7th. Jackson and I really enjoyed everything besides my kicking and snoring at night apparently. I did a get job controlling myself because I had to drive long distances and there were no major disasters. I've caught the big city bug and I'm bound to get in trouble because Worcester is not enough for me anymore. As I seat on the doorstep of 28 I am determined to start exploring it and New York was a great place to start. As Boston people we grow up hating New York but there's an awful lot to love about it and I would be lucky to end up there in the future.
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