Sunday, January 25, 2009

Not Gone

I’ve really been neglecting my poor little blog.  The advent of facebook drew me away from this form of communication, which kind of sucks, because I used to love to run here to tell the world all the things they needed to know, like, “I’m having Thai for dinner!” and “I slept on my neck wrong last night!” Now as I filter this uber-important information at lightning speed through my “status update,” the dinosaur known as Joe Paradox sits in cyberspace, collecting dust.  Since there’s something still to be said for a platform without a character limit, here goes.

Last weekend my friend Audra and I went to New York City for a weekend of Broadway shows, shopping, and overall silliness.  While I sat in the car for 6.5 hours, Audra luxuriated in her seat at her first show, watching Billy Elliott prance across the stage.  Bitch. 

You’d think the highlight of my weekend might have been the three Broadway shows we saw, or the great food we ate, or the good friends we visited, or the expensive shoes we ogled, but no.  The single greatest thing happened when I pulled up to the door of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, handed my key and a tip to the valet, and forgot about the existence of my vehicle for nearly four days.

Saturday afternoon we had every intention of seeing a matinee but my indecisiveness got the best of us and we ended up having a leisurely lunch and wandering around instead, which was just as enjoyable.  Saturday evening we saw one of the final performances of Spring Awakening.  Clearly the Rentheads found something to do after it closed.  One such boy went up to another group of similar people outside the theater and said, “Hey, are you guys, like hardcore Spring Awakening fans?” And a friendship was born.  We met a lovely young man in line while waiting to enter the theater whose Christmas gift from dad was a trip to New York to see shows.  On the way up the stairs to the mezzanine, we discovered we were sitting in the same row and made plans to make OMG faces at each other during all the good parts of the show.  I had to quick break up with him though when he started talking to the girl in the next seat.  How dare he.  Perhaps my greatest faux pas that weekend was not recognizing the fact that Steven Sater, the author of the show’s book and lyrics, was sitting two rows in front of me.  I could have had my Playbill autographed by the show’s writer, but I was too busy looking for gum in my purse.

After Spring Awakening, we headed down to the West Village where we met up with my good friends Kim and Dania for a quick chat before they headed off to bed before an early morning train ride to the Cape and we walked across the street for a dirty drag show at Lips.  The show was only a half-hour long, but it packed a punch.  We got some nice parting gifts from Ginger, a lovely lady who made balloon objects with air that emitted from her ample bustier.  I got some handcuffs and Audra got a nice whip.  Totally awesome.

On Sunday afternoon, we saw Equus with Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths.  Fortunately the appearance of Harry Potter’s wand was not nearly as traumatic as we expected from our on-stage seats.  The play was so riveting we nearly forgot to look.  We spent Sunday night with Trekkie Monster and the rest of the cast of Avenue Q, which was a treat considering I’d listened to the soundtrack but hadn’t seen the show on stage. 

On the food front:  On Friday night, when Audra returned from Billy Elliott, we wandered out in the bitter cold and stumbled upon a rather nice sushi place.  I hadn’t eaten since my 11:15 am lunch that morning, so I was thankful to have something yummy to nosh.  Saturday afternoon we went to one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Zenith.  I’ll never understand why that place is empty whenever I go there, but maybe it’s better that I don’t know the reason.  On Saturday night we went to a fantastic Vietnamese place, Saigon 48, with my friend Susan (who I haven’t seen since high school but it feels like we’ve been friends for the last 25 years and then some!) and her friend Aymee who is performing in Shrek, The Musical, and another cast member, her friend Jen.  They were totally awesome and fun and we had a fantastic dinner together and it made me want to move to New York City right then and there.  I adore these ladies.

Even though we had to return to our real lives of work, work, and more work, it was incredibly restorative and soul-satisfying to spend a weekend pretending we were ladies of leisure with nothing more in the world to worry about than where our next pair of Christian Louboutins were coming from.