Ok, starting the long awaited Chronicles of New York. Post number one, Saturday's travels and Sunday's wanderings. It's kind of stream of consciousness, I'm going to try to edit things and make it coherent, but I promise nothing. So lets wind the clock back to Saturday...

First journal entry from the Big Apple. Travel to La Guardia was not as bad as I was fearing, even if Mom and Dad's cremains got swabbed for explosives. *chuckle* they always loved to cause trouble. The flight was kind of uncomfortable, crammed in like sardines. But I finished one book, and then another novella. We landed, deplaned, and got on the shuttle to the hotel, and got introduced to crazy NYC drivers and a weird tour of 3 boroughs. Checked our baggage at the hotel, got our NYC pass for all the museums and tourist stuff, then went to Rockefeller Center to do 'Top of the Rock'. Basically it's a view of midtown from 70 stories up. And it was AMAZING. You could see all across Manhattan, Central Park (which had a cloud layer that made it look foggy and fae), and just amazing. I originally was going along because Amythest and Nymaz wanted to go, but I'm so glad we did...it was an amazing sight. Oh yeah, while going to get our passes we stopped in a pizza joint, and I got them their first real NYC pizza...and it was glorious!!! (additional, randomly walked by a place called 'Dylan's Candy Bar'. Glorious amounts of sugar of all kinds. I got mostly gummy stuff, Nymaz found sugar free stuff, including sugar free Poprocks. Amythest got chocolate. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area).

After Top of the Rock we came back to the hotel, and checked in. Vegged for a while, then decided due to a communal lack of spoons, to go to dinner and call it a day. So we stopped at a interesting fusion place, steak and sushi was the advertised, but it was more a fusion of Japanese and Spanish tapas style IMHO. Funny, they asked if we had reservations, we said no...matire'd said follow me, and took us through a bit of a maze to a door with EXIT over it...we all thought we were getting shown the door. But no, fancy nice place, very friendly waiter Jesus from Spain. I had tuna tartare, spicy tuna roll and eel and avocado roll. Spice tuna was decent enough, but the tartar was heavenly tasty, and the eel and avocado was probably the best eel I've had, the sauce was flavorful, but not overwhelming. We then went back to the hotel to sack out early. I had issues though. I was having anxiety foo, over all kinds of stuff. Being not home, being sweaty feeling, being anxious about being around other people. I ended up taking a xanax, and a hot shower and reading some Roman history. Finally sacked out, but had bad anxiety dreams. Boo, much boo.

Woke up Sunday, got into mental gear. Yay friends. We had breakfast at the hotel, then we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had some false starts and I kept getting turned around, but things worked out. Showed them the Manhattan that is not epic tourist. Was nice for me too. The MET was epic. We only managed one floor, Byazantium and Middle Ages, the arms and armor section where we almost lost Nymaz. Then the big Egyptian section, including a chapel from Aswan. Wow. We looked at art from all periods of Egyptian history. Then off to Greco Roman, with so many things I could just stare at. Which was the one problem... so much stuff I was interested in, that I just kind of got overwhelmed. I'd wanted to see the Near Easti Exhibits, maybe find a random Dagon bit *grin* but we ran low on tentacles. Got street food, found out NYC finches are hardcore vs pigeons for food, Hot dogs and pretzels, along with kebobs and stuff. Yay for street food.

We then wandered Central Park, saw the obelisk, aka 'Cleopatra's Needle' and i Belvedere Castle (and LARPers practicing) and the 'Alice in Wonderland' statue. Amythest got a little frustrated, trying to get pictures of it while kids climbed all over it, but that's part of the tradition of the place. We made our way back to the hotel to wind down, then we headed downtown to go to The Strand, aka book Mecca. We stopped at Union Square, wandered the booths, walked by the street chess players. Before we hit the Strand we stopped at Forbidden Planet, which I'd forgotten was right next to the Strand. The Strand is terrifying, bookshelves up to the ceiling, with random ladders for clients to go up. '18 Miles of Books'. We only explored the first floor, I picked up two books, a nice edition of 'The King in Yellow' (the story collection, not the play itself alas) and 'Carter and Lovecraft' by Johnathan L. Howard, which grabbed me with random tentacles (on the cover). I looked at the ancient history section and was so overwhelmed. The store was pretty overwhelming in general...so much stuff. Actually felt a little claustrophobic, so we didn't stay long. We headed back towards Union Square, stopping at a random pizza joint that had some seating, then got back on the subway and back to the hotel...where we crashed out hard.

So that's the first two days of the trip. When next we visit our heroes, they'll walk their feet off for all things nautical.

Well I slept pretty solid last night, stayed up til a bit after midnight watching 'Dagon' and 'Curse of the Crimson Altar' while fiddling with things. Dreamed good dreams, a future me in a very cyberpunkish but also utopian world. Woke up about 9ish, ate a little breakfast, and started doing assorted things. Putting up books, updating computers and VMs, catching up on webcomics, all kinds of stuff. I'm tired still, but the plan for today is pretty simple. I'll leave the house to get a package from the apartment office, and probably some cheap fast food for lunch, then continue updating and organizing and hermiting. Quiet time is quiet. But not too quiet.

I'm also going to try to keep to the habits I setup in NYC. More walking, aiming for a higher total than 5k a day. Much less snacking and soda. 3 'meals' a day. I also have to keep in mind that my mind and tentacles can handle a lot more than I gave myself credit for. (I'll go into detail in a later post, after a lot more naval gazing). So yeah, got plans and ideas and thoughts.

That's about it for the moment, there will be a lot of posts in the near future, probably 1 per trip day, along with some other deep thoughts. It's good to be home, but I also miss home too. Oh well, I can always visit again, and plan to. Catch you all later boys and girls.

Last post before I'm on my way to NYC. I'll be mostly quiet during the week, though I'll probably either make a nightly post from the hotel, or you'll get a flood of stuff when I get home next Saturday. If I don't post, have a happy Thanksgiving (if you celebrate) and don't blow up the internets while I'm gone. Oh yeah, and wish me luck with my anxiety, I'll probably need it. Ciao cultists.

Been another mixed day. Did a store run for the last few things I need for the trip...then promptly think of another couple of items I'd need. Packed and repacked and google about packing...hello mr travel anxiety, I didn't miss you. I think I've got everything settled, and tomorrow will be mostly being quiet and hermitish...as I won't be able to hermit for the next week. Had dinner with Amythest and Nymaz to go over the plans, and have real Mexican food before going to the land of bad Mexican food. Was good to see friends, even if I seemed to be off kilter. Came home after dinner, got a text from my uterine sibling...she's not going to make it to Jones Beach next Friday for the scattering of the ashes. Which has me relieved, I wasn't wanting to deal with the bloodrelative drama. None of us really get along, even the agnate sibling being much more pleasant with me this last year and change. But they don't get along, and I was expecting to have to play Switzerland between them. So instead I'll be saying goodbye to the parents, and saying hello again to my ocean, my long missed Atlantis Thalassa. *sudden flashback to Xenophon's history of the 10,000'* (Please give yourself 5 points of Greek history if you get the reference).

So yeah, I'm home. I'm mostly physically ready for the trip. Mentally, soso, and I have no real idea on the emotional side right now. Going to bed in a little while to read. Tomorrow as I said will be mostly hermitage, doing some chores, watching movies, the final store run, and going to bed early. Hoping that by Saturday at 0 dark 30 I'll be ready to go. Cthulhu give me strength (and ebooks). Ok, catch you all tomorrow.