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Weeknotes 26-43: NYC wedding

Busy week!!!! Monday started with playing ping pong with Snow for the first time in a while, she found a room in a Harvard building she has access to with one so we went there after work, and just as we were setting up another duo arrived to play. We traded off games on the table until like 3 or 4 in we just said we should play doubles which was super fun! One of them was clearly super good!! Snow got their contact info since they said they wanted to play again, which should be fun

Tuesday I saw the movie everyone’s talking about, You Can See Everything, really good! Lots to think about. Then Wednesday I saw Julien Baker with coworker Ava. She’s been doing this tour where she only plays really small venues with in-person ticketing, but sold a small number of tickets online and I managed to get two of them. So incredible finally getting to see her live after being a fan for so long. Really loved the live rendition of Everybody Does which completely transforms it, especially as a set closer. Yayyyyyy

Friday morning I was off to NYC for my friend John’s wedding!! I woke up extra early so I could finish reading Parade so I could bring a new book on the train with me, it was Okay. I walked to the station and rode to where my amtrak was, pretty much exactly on time because once I got my dunkin bagel they announced boarding call. As always with sold out trains I sat down first and someone else sat next to me, and sadly he was in and out of sleep for the whole ride which made it tough to get up lol. I got into the city after 4 hours of inconsistent reading (Abigail by Magda Szabó) and immediately made my way to Brooklyn since I was staying with my friend Jeff for the night and we wanted to hang out that Friday. I was a little early so I went to Prospect Park, a super pleasant day out, and read some more while people-watching the little fall activity area they had set up with a haunted house and fake axe throwing and stuff.

Now that I’ve gone to NYC a few times I feel like I fully appreciate their subway system now. Like it’s frustrating how inconsistent in-station signage is and how so many of their stations feel like a maze and the platforms are crazy small, but everything feels pretty fast and I only once had an issue waiting a long time for a train, only for it to arrive completely packed. Other than that only positive experiences!

Jeff finished up his work so I walked over, settled in, and then we got dinner at a yummy Austrian restaurant. Afterwards we just hung out and chatted for a while. Always so great great seeing him, really fascinating thinking about online relationships especially when we were both reflecting on how we never really post anymore. Talking about how like, so much of that sense of community is gone from social media, the feeling of a new indie game coming out and it’s what everyone is talking about for weeks, surely it still exists but either not in our circles or it’s in private discords instead of in public where other people can participate and meet (like Jeff and I did a long time ago!!!). I talk about this with Mariah all the time but I really do wonder how often people make this type of friendship anymore? It must be possible I’m sure, but I wonder if it’s all happening in community discords now. The next day we got breakfast at a nearby cafe and then I realized I had to get back to get ready for the wedding, sadly skipping out on a cute book store. He offered to drive me to the park which ended up being kind of a mess timing-wise, but I made it!!!!!

The wedding ceremony was kind of just in a general area in the park, no seating or anything formally structured. It was such a vibe and felt so New York having it just among the people of the park (dogs and kids approaching etc). After the ceremony I got lunch with some of John’s friends (discussing 80s “boy movies”, of which Nick’s girlfriend liked None), and then I went back to Jeff’s and we played Smash Bros with his kid for a while. I didn’t bother changing out of my suit since I didn’t want to get the shirt wrinkly or anything, but I did put on sneakers since I’d be doing a lot of walking to the train and then to the hotel and I’m glad I did!!!

I got to the hotel… well…. hostel, checked in, and got to my room. Honestly???? Such a mistake. I only got a hostel because I knew the wedding day would go late and I didn’t want to show up at Jeff’s at 3 in the morning or whatever, but pretty much everyone offered to let me stay at their place next time. So!!! Lesson learned.

I walked over to the venue, the famous Katz’s Deli, while waiting outside a guy complimented me on my suit (lol), and then I started seeing other people in the group so I went in with all of them. I was sat at a table where I knew only one person but all of John’s friends are cool (or actually, I think most of them were Jane’s friends, but they’re also cool) so it was a great time talking to them the whole dinner! We went to Outer Heaven for an after party and cake, which I didn’t realize that we didn’t have a reservation or anything, we just got there early enough where the dance floor was empty lmao. I talked a lot with Harry’s fiancee Mel who is very cool and nice, we seem to have similar vibes when it comes to parties like that (it’s great having someone corral you into talking with people!). At one point Harry walked over and I asked him for book recommendations and he immediately lit up and started writing a full list for me. One of them was Stoner so I already know I’m going to like the rest, very interested in checking out Morel’s Invention

Then we were off to the after after party at John’s friend’s apartment. Absolutely incredible space, one of the most beautiful apartments I’ve ever been in. He had DJ decks set up with a great sound system and Alex Diamond DJed for a while which I watched in awe and admiration. So incredibly cool meeting him, he was one of my favorites of the 2015 soundcloud nonstop pop nightcore scene, forever love Satellite’s Words. We had his friend’s USB and played so many of the classics we love like Deadmau5 Strobe and Hey QT, real music!!!!!!!

Got back to my hostel at like 2:30am, wired from being social all night, and so of course I couldn’t fall asleep until around 5. And, of course, I woke up at 8!!! Completely exhausted, I got ready and packed all of my stuff (unfortunately forgetting my nice phone charger in the room) and went to La Cabra since Mariah told me about a Glitch coffee collab they were doing. Sadly I didn’t realize it was at the other La Cabra, the one in Brooklyn. But I got a coffee anyway which was super good, fully worth the 18 dollars lmao. Also a cardamom bun, so with how expensive it was it really felt like I was back in Copenhagen.

Since I had a ton of extra time before my train I went into Brooklyn to the other La Cabra to see if I could get some of the Glitch collab beans, only to see a 30 person line to get in, and the employee showed me the list of already mostly sold out options, so I just left and got lunch at a Japanese cafeteria-style restaurant that doubles as a little ceramics/handmade crafts/trinkets store. Got a tiny wood bowl with a spout that will probably be nice for measuring coffee beans or other small things (and it’s just cute). Then I went back into Manhattan to check out some of the clothing stores that I wanted to visit, first stopping into Blue In Green. Really great stuff, sadly did not get anything! From there I thought I’d check out some of the shops I never get to go to since they don’t exist in Boston, like Brut and 3sixteen, BUT!!!!! it was so dry out that my nose started bleeding and I bled all over my white shirt!!!!!! Oops!!!! So instead of doing something fun I had to find a bathroom and I ended up just going straight to the train station after. Yayyyyyyyyyyy

Train ride home was nice, the college student sitting next to me was using chatGPT to generate study guides and quizzes based on her professor’s lecture which…… better than using it to write essays I guess. I tried so hard to read more but I was so exhausted that I couldn’t do more than a page or two at a time, but I’m really enjoying Abigail so far!! Big YA vibes but I don’t mind that every now and then! Excited to go back to NYC for the F5ve concert in a couple months!

Okay thank you for reading n_n

Things I’ve been into this week!!!

Art I liked!!