Can’t wait to go underwater

Back home from NYC, got in at 9pm last night, the rest of the trip was uneventful, hence no writing after I posted the photos…well, except for two things.

First, I finally got to meet my friend Nancy Schwartzman, after 8 years of emails, phone calls, near misses and almosts. She was one of the first photo editors to actually not only give me feedback on my portfolio when I was shooting, but also gave me a few assignments. We’ve been trying to meet for years, but never quite got it together, so it was awesome that we were both in NYC, well, that’s where she lives, and we got to meet! Felt totally comfortable and like were old friends, which we are, but no awkwardness at all. I guess we know so much about each other that meeting was just a formality. I find it fascinating how the internet allows friendships to flourish across thousands of miles, sometimes overseas, with people that you might not ever meet face to face. For all the complaints one hears about how the internet is full of crap I think this is one of it’s greatest contributions…it shrinks the world!

The other event was me getting lost in Central Park while walking back to the hotel. I thought I was walking ACROSS the park, from 5th to Central Park West, but when I stepped out onto the street, I noticed I was on 5th Ave again…”Hmmm, no worries, must have gotten turned around, I’ll just go back into the park and just follow this road through the park, and exit on…. 5th Ave…” Don’t really know how I did that, I have an EXCELLENT sense of direction, never get lost, so thought it was simply because I was tired, so I returned to the park, walked down a path, past the little boat house, crossed a road watched some remote control boats toll around a pond, and finally exited on…5th Ave!!!!! 3 times!!!???!!! I finally just hailed a cab and got back to the hotel $10 lighter…

Other than that, it was good, until the morning of our return.I didn’t check the flight times before that morning, assumed the flight was leaving at 3pm, and then actually checked at 9:30am that morning, and realized our flight was actually leaving at 11:30am!!! I figured we could make it, Maria didn’t think it would be possible, so we ended up re-booking for the 4:59pm flight, at an additional $600, and went to go get lunch… a really quiet lunch. When we finally boarded the plane we were one row behind a mom and her two crying kids, thankfully I have Skull Candy’s Proletariat NC headphones, the NC standing for NOISE CANCELING, so on go the headphones, the iPod gets clicked on, and G.Love drowns out the crying babies!

Maria had pointed out that one of our fellow passengers was Donna A. (a.k.a. Brett Anderson) from the band “The Donnas“, if you don’t know them, click on the link and get to know them, they’re pretty rocking! Maria actually wrote about them back in the days when she worked at Jump Magazine, just when they were starting off and we got to see them a few times, the last show being at The Troubadour in Hollywood, where, after the show, Donna A. pulled up next to us in her Volvo station wagon… guess they didn’t have a tour bus back then! Anyways, she sat in the row in front of us and I could see her seat back screen from where I sat, and so I got a gander at her playlist, Virgin America allows you to put together a playlist for your flight from it’s MASSIVE music collection, …but I ain’t telling what she was listening to! I considered leaning over and coolly asking about her Volvo Station Wagon, kind of show her that I knew who she was, but was too cool to mention the band, or her music…. but Maria pointed out it was kind of creepers, and the idea of getting punched by a rocker chick and then arrested at L.A.X. really wasn’t appealing, so I sat back and read my book.

Anyways, back home now, the weather is much cooler than it was in NYC, and things are back to normal… as normal as it gets in L.A. anyways. I need to go underwater, feel myself getting grumpier and my gills are drying up. Here’s a quote for you guys:

“The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its surface, men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched and their power disappears. Ah! sir, live – live in the bosom of the waters! There only is independence! There I recognize no masters! THERE I AM FREE!”
– Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

Freedom only underwater….

Tags: Central Park, getting lost, Jules Verne, Los Angeles, New York City, scuba, The Donnas, underwater, Virgin America