It's true what they say - Times Square really is the Crossroads of the World.
On my way to work this morning, I took Mark on his first subway ride in New York City. Our destination was the Port Authority bus terminal to pick up Myke, so that the two could begin their day of sight-seeing and wandering the city streets before eventually meeting up with Zenchick and Mz. Ouiser.
The boys and I wandered east on 42nd Street in the general direction of my office. As we passed Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, I heard someone call my full name. I spun around to find M.R., a good friend from college, run towards me in a blur and throw her arms around my neck. Right there in the middle of 42nd Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, I was hugging someone who I hadn't seen in years.
And I do mean years. The last time I saw M.R. was November 2, 1998. I was headed to St. Louis to do a show at The Rep for three months, and she had graciously offered to drive me to the airport. In those days, airport security was nothing compared to what it is now, and guests could wait at the gate with passengers. There was a particularly nasty storm that snarled air traffic for the entire Midwest, and my flight was delayed for nearly four hours. M.R. sat with me the entire time, and we did Cosmo quizzes and ogled cute boys together. In the following years, we kept in touch via e-mail and the occassional phone call, never seeing each other face-to-face, but lost touch with each other two or three years ago.
And now, five and a half years after that rainy November day, we run into each other in the middle of Times Square. We swapped cell phone numbers and did a 5-minute catchup, and promised to make dinner plans for the near future. And I really hope they pan out. With that, we were headed back in our separate directions.
That's New York for you, in a nutshell. I love this town.
Posted by mak at May 21, 2004 11:37 AMI love that town too. I actually ran into an old friend once in Paris. That was crazy.
Another time, in Kenya, I was riding in a jeep on a dirt road and saw two of my college friends by the side of the road taking pictures and we stopped the jeep and jumped out to hug before getting back to our separate trips.
Posted by: hot toddy at May 21, 2004 12:57 PMWhen Matt and I went to New York earlier this year we randomly ran into four people he knew on the streets of Manhattan.
If I keep hearing about things like this I'm liable to develop a complex.
Posted by: Nicholas Ajax Stamos at May 21, 2004 8:14 PMSometimes the world seems too small. But then other times it seems just right. I ran into the last girl I ever dated about ten years after the fact and a thousand miles away at, of all things, a Morrissey concert. I don't know what's more amazing: running into her, or that I stayed for the whole show.
Posted by: Jeff at May 23, 2004 1:48 AM