{washington park and more rain and opening night}

On Thursday, it rained in the morning. The fantastically drenching kind of rain--which was wonderful, because it turned all of the streets and sidewalks into glassy mirrors, which meant that we saw twice as much of New York as we would've on a sunny day.
At first we held things over our heads to try and keep dry. We ran from shop to shop. We stepped around puddles so that our shoes wouldn't get wet. But within an hour we were drenched anyway, so we gave in and let the water fill our ears and shoes and sweaters until we weighed twice as much as we had before.

After some time, we found ourselves in Washington Park, taking shelter under the Arch with some explorers from Paraguay, who were very friendly but spoke mostly Spanish. And then, because this is what it's known for, the sun came out. And we said to ourselves, we said, "This is great. Let's get pizza." We said goodbye to our new friends (who we ended up seeing again at the show later that night) and headed off. Our map was more like a wet dishrag at this point, but we could still, just barely, make out Little Italy on it.
     We ate fast, because we had to be at the theatre by 2. It was weird to see my little sister's picture on a theatre door in New York--Even weirder to see her on stage talking and singing loud enough for everyone to hear her and without a trace of self-consciousness. I think, growing up, she said maybe two words/year. I guess she was saving them all for NYC. She was excellent, by the way.
Oh! And guess who ended up running the lights? Yours. There had been a break in communication between the drama coach and the theatre, and both thought the other was supplying a lighting tech. I found out about it five minutes before the doors opened. Handled it.

{a new friend and the whispering arches}

I was on the Subway headed back uptown after my wanderings when I heard a familiar laugh right at my shoulder. I turned. "Macy! Allison!"

Somehow, in this massive city which made me feel so anonymous and small, I kept running into people I knew.

The girls were on their way to Central Park to run lines with the team, and I joined them. Because I love Central Park. Anytime, for the rest of my life, anyone says, "Hey, we're headed to Central Park; want to come?" I will slap them for even asking. Because yes, of course I want to come.

As they found their team and began rehearsing, I found a spot on a grassy hill, kicked off my damp shoes {it had been raining}, and followed along in a spare script.

A muddy dog jumped into my lap, as though out of thin air. It was on a leash but the owner kept the line slack and didn't make any effort to call it off. He laughed. "Don't worry, he's so friendly," he called out as I fell over backwards, trying not to touch the wet, smelly thing. Paw prints all over my new t-shirt. 

I hate the smell of wet dog. Maybe more than anything. 

The dog shivered and danced on my belly, trying desperately to lick my face. DOG BREATH. I did not want the dog to lick my face. I wanted the dog to get lost. I shoved it with my elbow, but couldn't move it from my awkward position on the ground. The owner was still laughing. I rolled over and the dog stumbled onto the ground and raced away after a woman on a bike, the owner trotting along behind it laughing like an idiot. "Don't worry! He's so friendly--"

"That dog was so cute!" The voice belonged to a girl who looked about my age. She was standing to my right, wearing fancy black rubber boots with high heels on them and big diamonds on her fingers. I smiled and nodded in agreement even though I didn't agree at all. I was covered in mud and smelled like a wet dog. 

She sat down next to me. "I'm Sara," she said. This is how conversations start in movies. Like, if Sara were an handsome man and I were a single girl who was sitting alone in Central Park trying to figure out my life and brooding about my tragic past. 

As it was, she stuck around and we talked about New York (she lived there) and our jobs (she was an architect-turned-high-end-jewelry-designer) and our pets (or rather, her pets, because I don't have any).

And then, I guess, we were officially friends. So we did what friends do: we ran giggling through Manhattan and went for tea at a place called "The Tea House" and pizza at a place called "Cheesy Pizza" and she told me the most adorable stories about how she met her husband and how he pursued her and proposed to her in an art gallery. I secretly wish I'd recorded the stories on my phone or something. So cute. Mental note: make friends with strangers more often.

I said goodbye to Sara after a couple of hours and rejoined some of my sister's friends, who were headed to Grand Central Station. It was only 11 PM, so I decided to go along too.
The coolest part about Grand Central is The Whispering Arches. I'd heard of them, but didn't really know what they looked like or where to find them. We explored the massive building thoroughly, and when I found them, I still wasn't sure I'd found them. To make me seem like even more of a crazy person, I didn't tell anyone else what I was looking for.

"Oh man! Maybe this is it! K, you stand facing into that wall--"

"Why?"

"Because you'll see. Maybe."

The premise is that one person stands at one arch, facing the corner like a child being punished at school, and the other person stands across the room at the opposite arch, same thing, and you're supposed to whisper to each other. Your whisper will follow the curvature of the ceiling (it's called telegraphing), and you'll be able to hear each other as clearly as if you're whispering straight into each others' ears. No matter how noisy the room around you is. It sounds like there're ghosts in the walls. You look kind of silly doing it, but as soon as people realize what you're doing, they'll do it too. And everyone looks silly together. (I've heard it's quite common for people to use the whispering arches to propose.)

The first guy in our group who tried it wasn't impressed at first. "Yes, I can hear you, Allison. What's supposed to happen now?" he asked as he turned around...and realized Allison was standing on the other side of the room. He thought she'd been standing right behind him, talking into his ear.

We even made a video for you. But keep in mind that at this point it was sometime in the AM and I'd been out walking in the rain all day. Which is why I'm a mess. Just keep it in mind. And I know it's the worst video in the world and fairly anticlimactic because maybe you had to be there. Oh well.

{title track}

I like skyscrapers. I like that they're kind of big, glassy mountains, stretching up into the clouds so that you can't see the tops of them on a nice foggy day. I like walking around in among them, dropping my neck back to gawk at them. I like feeling small and hidden, like no one could find me even if they were looking.

New York, I've heard, has almost 6000 skyscrapers. Which meant that I could walk and walk and walk and never run out of them. Skyscrapers forever, both up and across.

On Wednesday afternoon, I finally got ahold of Emily, whose train had been delayed that morning and who hadn't received a single one of my texts at the time, and we decided to try meeting up again at a crowded Starbucks somewhere in the middle of Manhattan. When I checked the address she gave me on my map, I discovered that it was about four blocks from where I was at the time, so I left my group and headed off into the skyscrapers.
I arrived 20 minutes early, since I'd only had such a short walk to get there. I stood nervously by the window, holding a copy of the New York Times and feigning composure. I now realized I had more to worry about than if Emily turned out to be an axe murderer: what if she just straight-up hated me?

A rush of people entered the coffee shop, and I put my paper down. I tried to pat down my frizzy hair. I feel like some people tend to dislike you quicker if you look disheveled. Which is crazy unfortunate for me, most of the time.

"Suzy!?"

A girl was walking toward me through the crowd, smiling. I noticed, with great relief, that she was not a middle-aged man brandishing a gun or a sword or anything like that. She was Emily. She had brown hair and a backpack and didn't have a trace of mean on her face. We were off to a very good start, especially if she was not adverse to frizzy hair and ripped pants.

We got coffees and sat and talked like we hadn't just met and it wasn't awkward, even a little. {And by that, I mean that she wasn't awkward, even a little. Awkward is finely written into my DNA and I can't seem to do anything about it.}

She had to go to class too soon, but before she left I asked her which direction I should go to see something beautiful. She pointed me westward and told me to walk straight, and so I did.