Wormcatchers

Sometimes when I get sick, I try to use it as an opportunity to set new routines. When I was sick two weeks ago, I was drinking water constantly, snacking rarely, and waking up early. I wanted to keep all of that going once I felt better again, and the one I’ve been the best at is waking up early.

It’s 6 a.m., and I’ve been awake for three hours already. I’m writing to you from the Amtrak Acela. This is obscenely early and not really what I meant from the first paragraph. I usually wake up around 9 because work starts 30 minutes later, and I’m typically remote. Ever since my friend’s 8 a.m. yoga class (yeesh, but it’s good if you’re up early), I’ve been waking up in the 7 and 8:00 hours.

Sleeping in can be such a blessing. Getting lots of sleep is good for you blah blah blah science, and I’m definitely a 7–8 hours girl. This is complicated by going to bed pretty late, so I’ve been trying to get my butt in bed earlier so I can get out of it earlier, too. I’m lucky that I don’t have too much trouble falling asleep.

Getting up (and especially out the door) early feels like finding out a juicy secret. Life feels more hopeful. You’ve already achieved something just by being up and alive. I think this has made my life feel a lot better, and I hope I can keep it going for a while.

I had a great week. Unfortunately I did lots of improv, and I’m really enjoying it. My friend Sebastian told me I need to stop making fun of something if it makes me happy, but it’s very hard not to bash an activity meant for the Insufferables. I had my second class on Monday, and two of my classmates said they go to this “improv jam” (read: you sign up, your name gets pulled out of a hat along with a few others, and you play around on stage for 5 minutes) Tuesday nights.

The jam is at Brooklyn Comedy Collective, which is in walking distance from my place. I decided to just go and do it. I both had the best and worst time. It was my first time in years being in a room of all theater people and it reminded me why I never got into performing as much as I could have. Everyone is so annoying, but I also wanted to impress them. This is the dumbest feeling to have and one that you shouldn’t have to feel anymore as an adult. I should be saving this feeling for when I’m in the PTA at my kid’s school or a suburban barbecue.

The people I talked to were all nice on the surface but I just felt a tilt in their tone, a shift in their eyes of them sizing me up. And yet they were much more extraverted onstage than in person. They all sounded sleepy when they spoke outside of the stage. Maybe I’m just projecting my own insecurities about being somewhere new where there’s a clear hierarchy to a thing that theoretically shouldn’t have one. Maybe they’re just as scared of me as I am of them!

This was my first time doing, like, conventional Can I get a word from the crowd? improv, and I think I was funny. At least, I did things I thought were funny. It was a majority dude crowd (yuck, and no surprise), but my randomized crew was mainly girls. One of them ended up being on my bus home, and talking to her and her friend felt like a breath of Oh, some people here do touch grass and are fun.

All in all, I felt like I accomplished something huge and can check Perform in Front of a Crowd (Non-Karaoke) off my New York bucket list. It was nice to spend more time with people from my class and watch them shine. I’m skeptical, but I think I’ll go back. There’s something about that deep insecurity that makes you want to go back and prove yourself and everyone else (imaginary) wrong.

After that night of firsts, I’ve had a lot of great friend time. I celebrated Justin’s birthday by having what would be one of the best meals I’ve ever had (and I wrote about it in the Food section). Leah and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and sipped cocktails while figuring out what we want from our summers.

A small crew played cards (Egyptian Rat Screw, a game I haven’t played since college and forgot the rules of even though I played it so much that I eventually got sick of it) and nursed beers before moving to a dancier location in celebration of Nick’s birthday. Nick talked about how he’s excited to get older and is unafraid of aging. This past year, I’ve teetered so much back and forth between excitement and worry. After hearing him casually declare his ease, I realized that it doesn’t matter how I feel, because it’s going to happen to me and is happening right now. I’m putting aging in the same answer category as things like the meaning of life, if God exists, and if Cherry or Vanilla is the better Coke variant: I don’t care! This is comforting.

My top priority of the weekend was hosting and hanging with my friend Sebastian. We worked it out on the remix early last year, which was a really welcome surprise. As a longtime proponent of letting things die, I’m learning that it’s cool when you give yourself and others a chance to change and return to each other. Life is short, keep your friends.

The last time he visited, I was still getting acclimated to Bushwick. This past weekend was an opportunity to shuffle him around through different besties and favorite restaurants, show him things I think he’d enjoy with the authority of someone who’s been here for over a year. He described the Warhol coffee at Dayglow as If the coffee bean had a life before it became a drink, it was a good, happy life. The We just sweat through the whole weekend in cafes, in backyards, on trains, on roofs.

I’m not sure what your city was like this weekend, but the heat was past the point of pleasure. It was an obstacle. The ‘80s song “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama immediately comes to mind. There’s something so fun in the suffering of staying outside, a romance in being stuck in the city while the world vacations. We spent Saturday afternoon in the Upper East Side, and the sidewalks were almost completely devoid of people.

The heat saps your energy, which worked in my favor, since I had to wake up at 3 a.m. today. I went home around 9, packed, talked to my mom, showered, and popped a melatonin before falling asleep before 10:30. I was really nervous yesterday about getting any sleep and making it to the train in good time. I’m also not much of a melatonin queen because I tend to be weary of depending on drugs I don’t need.

Well, I have to give it to melatonin. I woke up a little bit before my 3 a.m. alarm, and my paranoia about my mosquito bites kept me awake. I felt well rested until around 7:30 when I was writing this newsletter. But that was four and a half hours later, which was the amount of sleep I got anyway.

The pre-sleep stressing really paid off, and I used very little brain power to complete my morning routine, grab my packed backpack, and leave. I tiptoed through the living room in hopes of not waking up my sleeping friend.

It’s so wild to be outside starting your day when people are just ending theirs. It was still dark, and the club across the street was still simmering. I tried taking pictures of the moon, which is always a fruitless endeavor. It will never look as beautiful on iPhone as it does in real life.

My train was at 5, and a train that normally would take around 30 minutes took almost an hour. At my home station and my transfer, I had to wait over 15 minutes for each train. This is a long time in New York, but that’s a privilege compared to the other places I’ve lived.

It’s fun to wait when you’re not in as much of a hurry. I’ve spent so many of these early morning trips to Penn Station or Port Authority worriedly refreshing all of my map apps to make sure I’m going the most optimal route possible. I really enjoyed my music and was awake enough to blast stuff that makes me want to dance.

I would like to use this as another opportunity to say that Penn Station is one of the worst places to be, especially early in the morning. People taking Amtrak are encouraged by billions of signs to not enter through Penn Station but through Moynihan Train Hall across the street, a very new building with trendy restaurants and no seats unless you have a ticket. You approach the front of Penn Station and there are millions of signs saying NOOOOO PLEASE! DON’T GO HERE, AMTRAK RIDER! CROSS THE STREET! But for an early riser, Moynihan doesn’t open until 5 a.m. Me and a few other people trying to enter at the same time had to circumnavigate Penn Station to find the single door that was open. It’s funny to be in a cohort that’s all doing the same thing, but no one speaks to each other.

I grabbed a blue Powerade and a mint Clif bar with time to spare. Penn Station truly is the Ellis Island of today, people of all types out in full force. College students in rave clothes, families in polos. Homeless people sleeping, businessmen clutching briefcases. Theres lots of unused space, hallways leading nowhere. My favorite people I walked by were not one but three dudes on their own floor sweepers, a.k.a. the floor version of Zambonis. They are Penn Station’s caballeros, riding their trusty steeds into the sunrise together.

It’s train time. I have three hours ahead of me before I hit Providence, RI. Meera has been home just over the RI/MA border since Friday, and I’m spending the next few days at her house while her parents are on a vacation of their own. I know it sounds really dumb because we spend every day literally living with each other, but I’ve really missed her over the past *check notes* 3 days. Every time apart is different, but I’m just so excited to see her.

You know I’m an Acela girl. I can almost always sleep on this train because the seats are large, soft, and can lean back pretty far. Moreover, the pop-out table is long enough that you can put your head down on it. I wasn’t super sleepy at this point, and was worried that I would be awake for a long time. The family of four sitting across the aisle were all super excited for this journey, so far as cheering down the escalator. Everyone looked to be over 24. One of them seemed to be a bit of a train geek. When his brother(?) said this is his first time taking Amtrak, the nerd said This is the fastest train in the U.S. You’re lucky that this is your first train. They quieted down considerably, but I enjoyed looking over at them filming out the window as we crossed each bridge. They even took clips when we were moving onto the side of a highway. I liked their curiosity.

I was so happy on this train ride. I felt exactly where I needed to be. Admiring my city as I passed by and taking in the coastal New England towns I’ve been staring out at for years. I didn’t have a seatmate for the majority of my journey. I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do for these three hours. I put my head down for a semi-sleep near the end, but I spent most of my time watching the magnificent sunrise. I already won the day, and it hasn’t even started yet. I was just sending early a.m. messages for friends to open when they wake up.

It’s a little after 6 p.m. now, and I’ve just finished writing this narrative. At the time, I thought I had a lot to say, but I think I was just excited to be awake. I’ve had a really lovely day taking in the suburban silence.