"There seems to be a great deal happening tonight."

I just got back from the greatest city in the world with some of the greatest friends I've ever had. I will forever look back on these last 4 days of my life with a huge smile and probably a little chuckle to myself. Let me try to give you a kinda-sorta-brief-super-long summary of the trip...

Wednesday
Bus for 12 hours. Cards. Ultimate Champion. Dead Guy in the bathroom. One word storytelling. Sheetz. New York City. Hotel at Times Square. Times Square. Metro Card. Sam Waterston. Times Square again. Second food baby of the day.

Thursday
Got seperated from the group thanks to the closing subway doors. But thank goodness I was with half the group. We beat the others to the Met. 3 hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art isn't enough time. Hot dogs on the steps. Being sung to by a soul quintent. Singing Monks which was actually some truck noise. The Whitney. So weird. My favorite though. Being stuck at TGIFridays. Running through the streets of New York. Fuerza Bruta. Acid trip from heaven. My favorite show of the trip. Cheesecake at Juniors. Pointless walk across Manhatten. But the company was good so it wasn't that pointless.

Friday
MoMA. Omg. Wtf. Chairs? For 45 minutes? No. Okay, Tim Burton was cool. And so was Pollack. And Rothko. The Astro Diner kicked everyone else's lunch to the curb. The Drama Book Store. Amazing. Overhearing high school boys conversations make me laugh. ICOP (International Center of Photography). Kinda lame. Didn't like it. Little Italy. Waiting in the cold for pizza that tasted like cardboard. Leaving my purse on the subway. Most horrifying experience of my life. Finding my purse less than 15 minutes later, proof that God exists and He loves me. I am the luckiest girl in the world. Praise Jesus with all that I have inside of me. Brooklyn Bridge. Didn't care so much because I was still mellowed out from the purse fiasco. Yeah, Friday turned into kind of a bust but it's okay.

Saturday
Frantic search for Broadway tickets. Got em in record time. Tooled around the city with two of my best theatre pals. Went to my mom's favorite make up store. Got lost on the subway. Not a big fan of the Subway. Saw cute puppies. Chinese food. Went to "In the Heights." Amazing. Corbin Bleu redeemed himself in my mind. Kudos Corbin. Too cold to dress up. Dang it. Went to "A Little Night Music." Standing room tickets weren't so bad at all. Catherine Zeta-Jones is chizeled out of marble. Gorgeous. Angela Lansbury. There are no words. I love it very much. Awesome Broadway music store. Roxy's. Worrying about friends getting lost or worse. Sleep.

Today
Bus. Sleep. Sore. Tired. Already missing the greatest city on the planet. I love New York. It truly is the city that never sleeps. And I'm glad because we wasted no time.

I'm exhausted so I'm going to stop there. But I want to include the journal entry I made about "Fuerza Bruta." You don't have to know anything about the show or see it in order to understand my words. I mean, you might still not get it but I just want to share. Here goes.

"man walking. raining. running. drenched. shot. stops. starts over. people passing. not noticing. people follow. people fall away. running. shot again. start over.

such. is. life.

man dreams. women floatin in the air. ballet. flowy. then suddenly it erupts into a frenzy of energy and noise. screams. then after a while it fades away.

man wakes up. people walk by. all ignore and annoy each other. walking again. tables and chairs. frantic to keep everything together. nothing is working.

such. is. life.

joining a party. it soon breaks into a chaotic, destructive rave. everyone destorying everything. everyone is thrilled and having a great time. it spreads to the crowd.

dance party. styrofoam and confetti and cardboard everywhere.

look up. water dancers. first one. then two. soon four. water ballet. beautiful. the pool is lowered. the crowd can reach up and touch it. the dance turns a little scary. violent thrashing. belly flops. then peaceful again. solo. letting the water dance. all join. one last swim.

freedom. beauty. truth. love.

man walking. running. not alone. still running. laughing. stairs. climb them. open the door. think. don't think.

jump.

and everything is okay. never alone. still running and...

dance party. and life makes it rain indoors. no one is thinking. life explodes."