Get Thee to New York City!

The time has come. Did you notice that your Swatch was reading quarter to Times Square? Did you hear that Chrysler is going back to making buildings instead of cars? Yes. I’m going to New York City tomorrow.

I’m finally going to buy that damn Brooklyn Bridge for once and for all. I have a 20% off coupon and the asking price is only $29, 999,999! Where did I get the cash? Well, I picked up a lot of deposit bottles on those bike rides I’m always going on!

Actually, tomorrow is my birthday. No, I’m not 29 or 39 again; I’m going to be 48, and I’m proud of it. Plus, I only look like I’m 7 when I pretend I’m a cat, which is something I do quite often between you and me; sleeping in the sun is one of my favorite cat pastimes when it isn’t chasing a moth around the kitchen.

I’m taking the train to Penn Station tomorrow. As I mentioned previously, I love being on the train. I still believe if you really care about someone, nothing says “I love you” like a round trip Amtrak ticket; you don’t really even have to have a destination!

The mere pleasure of the trip is being confined to a small space for 3-4 hours. It’s a space you share only with yourself in which you are forced to listen to music, read, meditate, or balance your checkbook. These are things most people don't get to do a lot, especially when there are children around!

Anyway, I’m going to see one of my favorite musician, James. I really only go to New York City for two things. I go for James and vintage clothing.

I was supposed to go see James last Friday; however, I thought the prom was on Saturday not Friday, or was it that I thought James’ show was on Saturday and not on Friday? Of course, Nathan’s prom won out over a trip to New York City.

I had paid for two tickets to James’ show. Being newly frugal, given I was just accepting I was going to be unemployed longer than I expected, I didn’t want the tickets to go unused. James told me to post them on his Facebook page, which seemed like a good idea, and the ticket agency was willing to let someone else pick up the tickets if I gave them a new name by noon on Friday.

On Thursday night, I posted a note about my tickets. I said that I really wanted to give them to someone who was "unemployed or underpaid" like moi! In five minutes, a woman named Beth posted a response indicating she had sent me email.

She was a single Mom and was planning on going to the show with her boyfriend. It was her first time seeing James play. I didn’t have to read the rest of the email to know that these were her tickets; I emailed the ticket agency her name.

She sounded like a lovely person. She thanked me profusely and told me that my kind gesture would come back to me. After I emailed her the ticket agency’s confirmation, she told that she told her co-workers what I had done, and she told me that they all agreed I should buy a lottery ticket.

I was never one to gamble; I spent three days in Las Vegas without touching a slot machine, but I was at a trade show and on my feet from 9-5, even if my fellow co-workers thought I was drinking unbrella libations by the pool! I think I purchased only five lottery tickets in my lifetime. But, on Friday night, after buying Iz an ice cream treat at Cumberland Farms, I said to the cashier, “Two $5 scratch tickets, please.”

I felt guilty. I knew I was probably throwing away $10, but I liked the fact that a woman I had only met the night before suggested it. As Melissa once said, when I didn’t pick up a CD I saw by the side of the road, “You should have picked it up. Something really interesting might have been on the CD and something cool might have happened as a result!”

Of course, I could see the headlines of Saturday’s Lowell Sun: “Unemployed Woman Gives Away $20 tickets and Wins Two Million Dollars on a Scratch Card!” Hey, I could dream and make up my own headlines. I waited for a quiet moment on Friday night (i.e., after Iz went to bed), then I scratch furiously.

I scratched the first ticket, and it yielded nothing other than me saying to myself, “Damn. That was a bag of cat food!” I scratched the second ticket; I saw one of my numbers, and then there was another! I won twice.

What did I win? I won my $10 back! I think it was the Great Cat Goddess’s way of saying to me, “Don’t gamble again. I’ve given you your money back; so, go buy cat food with it now, you silly woman, you!”

Beth subsequently became my friend on Facebook. I didn’t get to see James, but she did, and she told me all about her wonderful evening. In the end, I gained a great new friend and some essential lottery wisdom.

As it turns out, on Friday night, I checked when James would be playing next. Here’s where you should queue your internal Twilight Zone theme. Beth was right because in that moment, my kind gesture came back to me; James was playing on my birthday at the same venue.

It would get even better. The Met had a new vintage clothing exhibit that I was dying to see. I planned my birthday trip; it was about music and vintage clothes. Could it get any better than that?! (Okay, it could only get better if I got a job offer from someone while I was balancing my checkbook!)

I know that some of my friends think my trips to New York City are unusual. One of my friends once tried to map my junkets to NYC to hormones, but when I took a trip that didn’t map to any hormones he could think of, he gave up. I have come to the conclusion that my trips are about me; for most of my life, I never really thought about me, because I was too busy thinking about everyone else or what everyone else was thinking about me.

At a certain point in my life, I gave up thinking about everyone else, well, to a certain extent. I love New York City, live music, and the Manhattan Vintage Clothing show. I’ve yet to find anyone who likes exactly what I like. So am I to sit at home and wish I were somewhere else or should I ride a train and be exactly who I am? Tomorrow, it’s about me and who I am; happy birthday, Jean. ♥