I don’t write much about my own life anymore, mostly because it’s boring. My daily process is: wake up, coffee or exercise, breakfast, videogames for an hour(almost always Happy Wars), write all afternoon (with a short lunch break), dinner, and two hours to myself. It’s like this almost every day, except for days where I have job assignments or D&D. It’s not the most exciting life, but as far as writing goes, it’s productive.

I have a close friend that’s a screenwriter in LA, and one of the original beta readers on Song of Simon. I’ve known him since we were kids, when he was friends with my younger brother. He ended going to SUNY New Paltz with me, and we both became writing majors. He’s a great dude, and I was very happy that he was flying into New York with his boyfriend, who I never met.

Unfortunately he had to run around all over the place while here. Instead, a bunch of us met up in a centralized location. It’s someplace I loathe: Times Square.

If you’re a tourist to NYC, Times Square is a great place to start. If you’ve lived in and around the city all of your life, it’s an Elmo-infested hell. There’s a person in an Elmo costume (or Batman, Spiderman, etc) on every corner, trying to get you to take pics with him for money. It’s obnoxious and pervasive, like a furry, red virus.

Elmo likes ’em young.

But I went at night, and it was more like the Times Square I loved as a young man. Instead of Elmos, there were barkers handing out coupons to strip and comedy clubs. Yes! My New York is tits and laughs. They know what I like.

I also managed to photobomb at least five groups of tourists. I’M FOREVER IN YOUR NYC MEMORIES, SUCKAS!!!

yup

We met up in the Hard Rock Café. I know it’s a tourist trap (and obscenely overpriced) but it was easy for all of us to get to (me from the Port Authority, the others from Penn Station). I gave my friend a huge bear hug, and he marveled at my weight loss (120 pounds so far). I met his boyfriend, who is awesome. He’s a geek that got all of my D&D references (getting just one makes you my bff). We ate overpriced food and talked about all things writing, industry, and geek. I saw the trailer to his self-produced pilot, and it’s so good I want to delete everything I’ve ever written.

Oh, I photobombed a few more people at the Hard Rock. I’m a bastard.

Because the bus ride to and from the city is 2 hours (even though I live 30 minutes away by car), I didn’t get home until almost 2am. That’s so late for me, it fucked up all my Kool-Aid for the next day. It was worth it. Every trip to the city should be as good…and as Elmo free.

Especially after some street meat

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