So Long "The Big Apple"

“So, how was New York?” people have been asking me lately. New York.... the first day of the trip: it was 6 p.m.; I was on one hour of sleep; I hadn’t eaten since noon; I badly had to pee; there were no public restrooms available, and I was following journalism peers out of Brooklyn, and we were lost. I found myself in a back alley where one of my peers was peeing up against a wall. No, it wasn’t the public restroom I had been searching for. I turned around, tears streaming down my face with the shame of someone carrying a tear-stained face because of primal human urges calling.

“What’s wrong?” one of my peers asked me. “I have to fucking pee!” I said angrily. He suggested I use the back alley as a restroom. “I’m not going to pee against a fucking wall,” I said…He found me a restroom soon after, but the fun I was having wasn’t about to end.

We ended up at the Tea Lounge after a long subway ride and lots of walking. It was about 8:00 p.m. and I still hadn’t eaten or slept. Loud techno sounds boomed in the room, punishing my eardrums, telling my I couldn’t sleep. A show by the name of “Exploitation Extravaganza” or something like that was showing on a movie projector. Offensive images of bloody women, topless, being tortured in some scenes or brainwashed as sex objects in classrooms in other scenes played. I wanted to get out of there, go back to the hotel and sleep, but I was stranded because I didn’t know how to get back on the subway station. Midnight approached and we had Chinese food, but then some genius decided it was a good idea for everyone to go to another bar and go dancing. That was the final straw. I was not about to stay any longer. Luckily, I made my way back to the hotel with the help of some of my journalism peers.

Needless to say the first day of New York didn’t go so well, but luckily, the next few days were much better. I went to a couple of workshops at the CMA convention, and met up with the journalism crew at the Rockefeller Center by Radio City Music Hall. I noticed a curious sensation, the corners of my mouth upturned in a smile. It felt so good to be smiling again after a long period of blackness. Lately, every time I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward, it is a noteworthy sensation.