SNL Royalty
The day began with Candace and I heading out for a walk around the neighbourhood. We were heading through a construction zone and when a man in a hardhat called out to us, “Whoa! I didn’t know the Miss America Pageant is in town!”
New York City construction workers are notorious for hassling women, so where I would normally be indignant at being cat-called, it felt more like a travel experience than street harassment. I’m sure the women of NYC feel differently about it, though!
It ended up being a day of walking. We walked all the way downtown and took a tour of the NBC studio. It wasn’t something I would normally do, but I do love television, so I figured why not? It didn’t end up being worth the time or money, but experiences are experiences. It could have just as easily been life-changing, and really, that’s the point of travel. Say yes and see what happens.
While we were at NBC Studios, we picked up some stand-by tickets for the Saturday Night Live dress rehearsal, but before we lined up with about 80 other people, we headed on over to the tourist-infested Empire State Building.
The view was incredible. A sea of buildings bordered by water and wall-to-wall sky. It’s hard to even see the limits of NYC – the city is just so huge. I would love to live here. It feels so comforting to be in a big city. No one bothers you and everything is just footsteps away.
After walking around a bit more (I think we spent about seven or eight hours walking around), we lined up at Reokefeller Centre to see if we could make it into the SNL dress rehearsal. It was close, but we made it. I was the second-to-last person to get in, so we really cut it close. I’d like to thank all those who didn’t show up to take their place in line.
The taping we saw was great. The entire studio started out dark and there was some back and forth throat clearing between one of the cameramen and someone on stage. It’s funny to think that you can recognize someone by the sound of a throat-clear, but we knew it was Will Ferrell. When the lights came up, he was in an Oval Office set and dressed as George W. Bush. Tina Fey walked in playing Sarah Palin and our night was made.
After that, we were both just so exhausted that we crashed in the hotel room. Kilometers of walking and a couple of hours of laughing had just totally drained us.
I woke up super-early to my body just freaking out. I was having muscle cramps and spasms and felt like I was under attack from the inside out. Normally, I’d blame gluten, but as I was lying there in agony, I thought to myself, “This can’t be gluten. I haven’t eaten anything in days.”
There is was. For those of you not paying attenion, I’ll repeat, “I haven’t eaten anything in days.”
There’s this problem I have with anxiety and when I’m approaching a trip time or an important event, I tend to stop eating anything substantial for fear that I’ll get sick. It’s not a good or logical plan, I know. The real problem is that I don’t always notice that I’m doing it.
My body is currently angry that I have not taken the time to eat properly. I’ve estimated that I’ve only had about 2000 calories over the last four days, which is entirely unacceptable even if I were just sitting around. I will be spending a lot more effort eating now!
I’m sure this calorie-deficiency led to me to miscalculate what time I needed to wake up this morning. I thought I had to be a Penn Station to catch the bus to Buffalo a 6:45am, but I was an hour early. I couldn’t see the bus anywhere and I thought I had missed it. It took some time for me to realize my error, but it was such a relief when I caught sight of the Greyhound bus.
In accordance with this morning’s oath to eat more, Jenn took me to the grocery store and I got the ingredients to make a wicked potato soup. It was good and you’re all jealous that you didn’t get a chance to partake in my awesome soup-making skills.
I’m feeling sooooo much better now. You have no idea. My body has stopped freaking out and twitching, so I’m sure I’ll sleep well and be ready for some Jenn & Jillian shenanigans tomorrow. I plan on taking her portrait and will not take “no” for an answer!
