Um Yeah

I realize that I had made a resolution to blog more and then *did not touch the blog for six months.* Lame. This past work year has been brutal and demanding, though, and the last thing I wanted to do was to get online and blog during my free time.

Now, however, it is summer and I have plenty of free time. I'm working a couple of hours weekly these next couple of months, but it's mostly going to be relaxing, working out, cooking and basically finding time to catch up.

I am also hoping to start a Saturday Night Project, in which I post photos of my Saturday night activities every week. It's a good way to record my life and remember what was going on at whatever time.

But, first, I should talk about NY. We arranged the trip to visit Grace and Clarence and planned to leave on my last day of work for a long weekend. There was a monstrous storm in Chicago right before we got on the El to O'Hare, but we sailed through security and boarded the plane with no delay which was shocking. This was all to sit on the runway for two hours, though, since there was a back up of flights taking off. We got into LaGuardia at around midnight and took a short 20 cab ride to Grace's East Village studio where she generously offered up her bed to us.

New York was great. It's such a frenetic city, but each time I visit, I like it a little more. This time, I liked it the most. Some highlights of the visit by time line:

1. Saturday we took the train to Coney Island to meet up with Jenny and Jay for Coney Island's famed Mermaid Parade. It was...something. The pros: experiencing and seeing the breeze and sights on Coney Island's boardwalk, seeing Jenny and Jay again, and the sunny weather. Cons: the crowd. Oh lord, was it crowded. Like, confusingly and outrageouously crowded. The parade was charming (mermaid costumes...anyone can enter...lots of BP themes), but it did not warrant the packed crowds that it produced in my opinion. We spent a good portion of the time trying to get through the crowd, and it was a little untenable. Overall, it was a equal parts interesting, annoying, and comical. We managed to squeeze into some tables at Nathan's Hot Dogs afterwards, where Todd tried his first Coney Island dog and I sipped a gargantuan diet coke.