I went to New York. I didn't get lost. The Empire State Bldg took forever. More details? ; )

I got to LGA a bit early, made my way to the bus and subway, to the hotel no problems. I ended up getting my own room because Briel's was on the east side, and everything else was on the west side, so I figured it'd be easier. I went to the Empire State Bldg because I still had my ticket from August, but that took almost 2 hours because of lines. However, there were two women in front of me from Chicago, so we chit-chatted a bit. The two women in front of them were from England, and they also joined in the conversation. It was nice to pass the time being goofy with them. I mentioned our good friends from England that came to the PBP in February. I believe I described them as "some pretty crazy gals." And I received lots of nods and laughs from the English women. I also questioned them on tea time. They whole-heartedly agreed (and chuckled) about "nice people" have tea at 4pm. : ) It was crazy. By the time I got back to my hotel, it was 6pm, which was when I was supposed to be meeting my other friends for dinner.

I got to the area around the Bitter End at 7:30pm. There was a bar crawl going on down there, and it seemed like a bunch of drunken spring breakers were all over the place. I found my NYC Bronzer friends though, and we headed to the Bitter End where I had already spied Briel and Erika (Cricket) in line. When we walked up, guess who else was there? Deb! I was like "No Way!" all pointing at her and everything. I said that Shelly would kick herself now for not making it when Deb was all secretive and made it. She's nuts. Said she called Briel an hour beforehand saying "Yeah, I think I'm just going to eat something and watch TV." Crazy.

Dogmeat claimed he wasn't going, but he bought a ticket anyway. Mazzy, Marsgirl, Dogmeat, SpikeLuva, Yefa, Marlena were the NYCB people there that I knew. Cricket was there with Hollyn, OzLady (Wendy), and a few others I didn't know. Ingrid was there from last time, who is part of the JMConAps group. Brenda and Vikki were there of course, and Maia from their group came and sat with me because their table was full. They had a couple other friends with them that I didn't know. And of course, I was with Deb, Briel, and Amy.

The place was packed, not even as big as the main floor space of the Whiskey it seemed like. The band members' families were there it seemed because of the grandmothers in attendance, but I couldn't tell you who was whose. The girl who played ahead of time was really good, Alison Breitman. Captain Genius was on for about an hour after her, and they were good! I was impressed enough that I will probably go buy their cd. Eric got on stage and did two songs with them. The second one was funny because it looked like he had a hard time remembering the words. Probably because he had only planned on doing one song. Goofy guys, but I enjoyed it. The singer reminded me of Green Day a bit, in his facial expressions if nothing else. They looked about James' age, lol. I just kept thinking as they were getting on stage: "So this is another one of those mid-life crisis bands everyone who doesn't like GOTR accuse James of having!"

Common Ro came on *I thought* a little after 10pm. I have the set list, but I left it at work. Eric opened with an acoustic song, "Heaven Help Me," that they recently put on the Union Maid off of the official CR site. Then, the rest of the band came on stage to "Did a Verse End." The acoustic exit song was "Love and Mercy." Adam did a very funny improv about George Bush, but I can't recall exactly how he set it up - I just remember him saying "All those things George Bushy says scare me." Another funny moment I liked was in "Oklahoma" when Adam got down on his knees and acted out the praying (hands together) and the Jesus line (arms up, waving hands like a revival).

The band members from Rainbow Trout (Jordan Katz-trumpet, Brian Kaplan-trombone, Aaron Wolfe-sax, and Jason Crosby-keyboard/violin) were awesome as usual sitting in. Their show was at midnight at Tobacco Road, but it didn't start until closer to 12:30. Briel, Deb, Amy, and I headed that way once CR was done and we had said some goodbyes. Vikki, Brenda, and Erika made their way there too with their respective groups. They were really good, but very loud too. We danced a bit, steered clear of the trippy dancer, and I gave in at 3am to head back to my hotel. I debated a bit on sleep or no sleep, but I figured 2 hours was better than none. Somehow it got to be 6am, then 7am, so I got up, made sure I had everything and hit the road. Being ever so crazed about missing my flight back, I of course made it early to the M60 stop and had to wait a good 15 minutes for the bus to get there. Even so, I was at the airport with a good hour or so before boarding time.

Plane ride = good nap time. Drive home = very pretty and warm. Got home, stopped moving = instant yearning for long, quality time with my bed. (Get out of the gutter people! )

I have pics.

That's as good of a summary as you will get from me for now because even with the 8-9 hours of sleep I got last night, that is still only 15 total since Thursday night, lol. I am still one tired puppy.

"Now I'm just a biiig fluffy pup-py." : )