{shady characters and the library}

"PPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTT! PSSSSTT! PPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTT!"

I was standing on the corner of Amsterdam and 96 West waiting for a walk light when the mini van pulled up a few feet away. The passenger window rolled down a crack and a toothless old woman wearing a bandana poked her head out.

"PPPSSSSSSTTTTTT!" I wasn't sure whose attention she was trying to get. I glanced over quickly and when she caught my eye she erupted with cackle-y crackly laughter. I looked away.

"PPPPPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTT! Chiiiiiii-caaaaaaaaa...." More cackling. "CHIIIIIII-CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

Her voice was incredibly eerie. Her skin looked like leather, and she was waving a lit cigarette at me out the window now, laughing like a goblin every time she knew she'd gotten my attention. The walk light. I gathered up my goosebumps and got the heck out of there.

I was on my way to meet Emily for coffee.

Emily, of the blog If Ever I Could, which I've been reading for, hmm, a few years now at least. She reads my blog too. And blogs are funny that way because when two people consistently read each others' blogs for long enough, they become friends at some point without even consciously choosing to. Because, you know, you get the basic rundown of what's going on in their world and how they feel about it and you get their reaction to current events and entertainment and all that, and they know all the same things about you--all the same things you'd share with a real-life friend. Right? It's like having a bunch of pen-pals. Kind of. Right?

Anyway. The point is not that. The point is that I'd emailed Emily a few weeks ago, when I found out I was going to be in New York, and kind of awkwardly asked if she wanted to go for coffee. (It's always a little awkward asking a stranger to go for coffee.) But she'd said yes, and we'd picked a date and a time and a little coffee shop on the corner of Amsterdam and 96 West.

But now, as I run-walked away from the mini-van with the goblin lady in the window, I had a horrible thought: What if Emily was the goblin lady? What if her whole blog, all that writing, all those beautiful words and thoughts and pictures, what if it was all just a ploy to... Here my train of thought derailed. To what, Suzy? To what, exactly? To get people to come to New York and ask her to coffee so she could drive up in a mini-van and laugh at them? Brilliant.

I slowed down a tad and entered the safety of the small coffee shop, checking my phone to see if I was late or early. Because I'm never, never on time.

There were two tables and a bar. Everything was modern and simple. There was a bored-looking young man standing behind the counter, and a nice-enough-looking old man sitting at the bar with a muffin, a cup of coffee, and a paper.

What if Emily is actually a nice-enough-looking old man!? 

I laughed inwardly at myself. Paranoid to the max. I took a seat to wait for Emily. I was early.

At exactly 11 AM, the time we'd set to meet, a shady-looking character walked past the coffee shop, looking inside intently. Right at me. He was wearing a ball cap and had a gross old moustache. He looked like a creep. He disappeared around the corner, only to reappear a minute later, walking the other direction, still staring. When he rounded the corner again, I could see his shoulder still and realized he was just standing there. Waiting. I know he wasn't wearing a black trench coat, but when I picture him now, he is wearing a black trench coat.

Emily. 

Emily has a gross old moustache and is going to kill me!

The man peeked around the corner and and in the window at me again. I texted Emily.

was that you in the mini van?

there's a big creep hanging around the coffee house

No reply. Obviously. Because she was hanging out around the corner getting her gun ready.

To shoot me with it.

I smiled at the old man as he took a sip of his coffee. I wondered if he was strong enough to fight Emily.

Time ticked by, and I wondered what to do. The street the coffee shop was on was a busy one, but I didn't want to walk past that guy by myself. A policeman walked past the window. Perfect. It was 11:40 now, and no sign of Emily the blogger, just that annoying murderer. I gathered up my stuff and scooted out the door, falling into step beside/behind the policeman. I followed him, closely, past the creepy man and down the street to the subway station a few blocks away, and joined a crowd of people heading into the station. I sighed and swiped my Metrocard and jumped onto the first train and ended up in Times Square.

I felt like I needed to find my sister or her friends now. I knew that the man at the coffee shop had probably just been a coincidence, and that Emily and I had probably just missed each other because of a miscommunication or a delay in the subway, but I also used to watch CSI. Garbage in, garbage out. You know?

I stood for a moment in the middle of the busy sidewalk and looked around. Masses of people buzzed around me with their cameras and backpacks and noisy conversations. I felt like a speck of sand on a beach. "Suzy!" I turned, and there was Denae. And Kevin. And Tyler. And Naomi. And everyone else. Right there. Small beach.

"What're you doing here?" Denae asked. "Elise said you were meeting a friend for coffee."

I shrugged. "Walking around," I said. Because I felt completely silly about everything.

And then it started to rain, buckets and buckets-worth of water. We pulled our sweaters up over our heads and bolted through the downpour. I didn't know where we were going, but I was pretty pumped about not being murdered.

{Click here before continuing. It will help you appreciate this next bit better. I promise.}

So we ran and ran and ran, and even though I had my sweater over my head, I was soaked right through. Naomi led the way across the street and into a beautiful old building, which I later found out was the New York Public Library.

Seriously: Is there anything better than escaping certain death, running through the rain with new friends, and finding yourself in the biggest library you've ever seen? There isn't.
Anyway. The story ends happily, because Emily was totally not a creep in a black trench coat. She's one of the nicest people ever, and everything was just a mix-up with delayed trains and bad phone signals and stuff, and we did get to go for coffee. But I'll tell you about that tomorrow, probably.

{broadway and times square and a dangerous diner}

We got these cheap tickets for a Broadway show called Newsies. The whole thing started off slow, but then there was tap-dancing and cool choreography and pretty decent high notes, and then the story sucked me in and I fully took up the cause of the paperboys in my heart and felt absolutely destroyed about it when the one kid got beat up and maybe even cried just a little sobbed through that one song, and somewhere in the middle I went from "hooked" to "I WANT TO BE A BROADWAY STAR MORE THAN I'VE EVER WANTED ANYTHING ELSE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE."

"EVER."

I get all caught up in stuff like that. If something's awesome, I feel this intense need to be part of it. Like those phases that teenagers go through, but it's no longer cute or justified since I'm 25 now. It's just alarming, probably, to those around me.

Nonetheless, I made it safely through my Broadway Star Phase, and don't really miss it all that much.

After the show, it was maybe 11 PM, and we decided to go for supper before searching for something else to do. Because, you'll remember, I was hanging out with a bunch of college kids. And even though 25 isn't really that much older than 21, if your bedtime inches forward even 15 seconds every day, that's 365 minutes every four years, which is something like six hours, altogether {right?}. So, you know, they didn't feel the need to go to bed till like four in the morning, where my friends back home usually bow out around ten. Because of that dang 15 second rule and, I guess, because of jobs and families and stuff like that that we didn't have to worry about four years ago.

And it was fun. I liked it. I took it for granted when I was in it that for the rest of my life I'd be able to run on two hours of sleep and a fifteen-minute nap, so this was kind of a weird little opportunity to turn back the clock and be 21 again for a week. If you ever have a chance to jump on a plane with a bunch of college kids and go to a city where everything stays open all night, absolutely go.

Anyway. We wandered through Times Square to see if there was anyplace good to eat. It was the middle of the night but it was as bright as day. I was leery of the adult-sized, grungy-looking Elmo walking around, the naked cowboy playing guitar, the flashing billboards, and the complete lack of personal space, but there is something, I guess, about being in Times Square. Which is funny, because aside from the giant ferris wheel in the Toys R Us, there really isn't that much going on in the square itself...just a lot of walking and yelling and picture-taking and advertising. A lot of hype. 
We finally found this place called Ellen's Stardust Diner where the waiters and waitresses sing to you while you eat. It sounds great, but it was pretty loud and our server was an angry guy who kept slamming stuff on the table and yelling at people and never smiling, and he got into this weird fight with a waitress and sprayed ketchup all over her and then she threw a handful of silverware at him. Right in front of our table. He never refilled my water, either.

The whole thing was a tad unprofessional, I thought. It might have even affected my tip, if 20% gratuities weren't included in the bill already. I wanted to write something snarky on the bill like, "The sweet potato fries were good, but totally not worth a fork in the face."

{DUMBO & the Bridge}

My favourite spot in New York is a funny little place with a funny little name: DUMBO. I was told it stands for "Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass", but I feel sorry for it anyway.
However.

Despite its strange title, it is really the most adorable and wonderful place ever. Which, I guess, makes some sense since Dumbo was the most adorable and wonderful elephant ever, even if he was a tad fictitious (he's real in my heart). If I were an author (and wouldn't that be great?) and I had some sort of book to write (because that is what authors do) and I also had the means to spend my afternoons anywhere in the whole world to write this book (we're talking teleportation, probably), I would pick DUMBO. I would bring nothing but a box of fruit snacks and a notebook and my favourite black pen and my iPhone with a bunch of tragic music on it.
All of the characters in my book would probably end up dead or dying and with broken hearts, because beautiful scenery and tragic music and fruit snacks are not all that conducive to happy endings.

Anyway. One of the best parts, besides the carousel, is that DUMBO is right beside the Brooklyn Bridge, which you can walk right over after you've written a novel or before you've written a novel or while you're suffering from intense writer's block. The view from there is unreal. I went once during the day, with my sister and her drama people, and once later on in the week at night with Barclay. Because city lights and romance and fireworks over the Statue of Liberty. You know. Like that song.