One of these days I'll get back...

Lately, it seems like a lot of my mind's attention has been on NYC. With friends coming and going and me all wrapped up in my theatre bubble the way I used to be I haven't been able to help but to think of all the fun memories I have there.

The first time I went I was 8 years old. My grandma took my cousin and me and we stayed with the family of a friend of hers. Getting to do New York the way people who live there do was pretty amazing although I don't remember as much of it as I wish I did. It's funny the little things you remember though. I remember being at the top of the World Trade Center towers. It was 1993 and one of the buildings had just been bombed. I remember looking from the one we were standing in, into the hole of the one next to it. Les Miserables must have been on Broadway because I remember seeing the famous face of that little girl on buildings everywhere and my grandma pointing to it and saying she wanted to take us to see that show. I don't remember having any knowledge of Broadway or real theatre. And I know I told her I didn't want to see it. That sad face scared me. How much I wish I hadn't said that... I remember my grandma taking us both to the Gap and buying us each a new outfit for school and feeling so excited to wear that on the first day.

The next time I went was my junior year of high school and it was without a doubt one of the most fun weeks of my life. My friend Rob and I ran all over the city, usually without a chaperone. I'll never forget heading down some back alley as it started pouring down rain, completely starving, and walking into a random deli. I swear it was full of Mafia members and the minute we stepped through the door every head of every huge man in the place turned and stared at us. We were scared to stay, but more scared to leave. So we bought a brownie, ate it quickly and scurried out, checking behind us every few steps to make sure we weren't being followed. That trip was where all of my Broadway experiences started. I slept through Music Man, was completely taken with Kiss Me Kate and cried through The Lion King. I still cry every time I hear Endless Night.

After that trip I had trips with my mom and trips with my dad. For awhile there I was going multiple times a year. I spent hours in Central Park. I was there the May before Sept. 11th and the June after. I saw The Producers, 42nd Street, Hairspray, Little Shop of Horrors, Movin' Out, Cabaret...and who knows what all else. I won front row tickets to Wicked with Kristin Chenoweth, Eden Espinosa, Joel Grey and Norbert Leo Butz. I made it to FAO Schwartz a couple of times and remember walking up to the door on my last trip, so excited, only to read a sign on the door that said it had gone bankrupt. I've eaten so much greasy pizza that I've probably put forced myself into an early grave with it. I road tripped it with some of the best women in my life.

I've been there with some of my favorite people in the world and there's just something about the experience that makes your relationships stronger. Something about the bigness, the busyness that connects you with the person you're there with, isolates you as you realize that without them you'd just feel really lonely in a big, beautiful city full of life.

Anyway, as boredom drew me into blogging, that's what was on my mind. It won't be anytime soon, but maybe one of these days, I'll get back...