Fall for Dance

I'm writing tonight while sitting out on my balcony with Pyramus because the temperature is just perfect. The sky seems unusually light, even for New York with all its light pollution. The cloud cover tonight maybe? Anyway, I've been having a nice day today, particularly because I always feel exceptionally virtuous after voting (for Squadron and Newell in case anyone's dying to know). Anyway...

I'm glad it was such a nice day Sunday. I wanted to get Fall for Dance tickets without paying the ridiculous $6 per ticket service charge online the way I did last year. And since I'm kind of neurotic when it comes to things like buying tickets and I needed to get them for other people as well, I figured I would get there really early. So I left my apartment a bit before 6 o'clock Sunday morning. Now I don't know about you folks, but I don't get out of my apartment before light on a Sunday morning too often. It felt kind of adventurous and fun. And then a fight started between a man and a woman on the subway platform--not arguing but actually punching, kicking, hitting each other with umbrellas, etc.--and that was a hell of a lot less fun. More nauseating, really.

So it was a relief to get on the F and then come out onto the fairly deserted Sunday morning streets of midtown. There were already a number of people on line, but I felt good about being as close up as I was. (To the right you can see the line in front of me.) The lady who got there just after me was less happy, informing me that she was 33rd in line this year when last year she had been 15th. Also less happy were a couple of the old men a bit down the line who were very put out that an elderly couple in front of them added someone to the line who hadn't been there originally. One of them indignantly told the couple, "This is New York not Florida!" Apparently people don't respect lines in Florida? I don't know. Although it was hardly the end of the world, I can kind of understand where the elderly men were coming from, and it was certainly more civilized than my morning subway experience, but I still maintain that 7 on a Sunday morning is just too early to be getting all worked up.

It was a nice crisp morning, and I sat on my little camp stool and finished off Ha Jin's Waiting--which I continued to find tedious, by the way--as the line grew rapidly behind me. Then I did crossword puzzles for a bit and made a run to Au Bon Pain for breakfast. It was a pleasant way to spend my morning, really, particularly since I would have just been in bed for a good portion of it if I were at home anyway. And then I would have gotten up because Pyramus was asking to be fed and felt like I had to spend my morning doing chores. So despite the early wakeup I found the whole waiting in line aspect ridiculously relaxing.

They opened the box office about 15 minutes early, which was nice since it pretty much meant those of us at the front of the line got to beat the internet and phone buyers to the punch. The line buzzed along once they opened and by about 5 minutes after 11 I was back out on 55th Street, tickets in hand. And close ones at that. It'll be a little weird watching dance from somewhere other than the very back of the theater. I always just buy the rear mezzanine tickets for City Center since they're the ones I can afford. I didn't want to be fussy or worry about seating preferences at the window with such a massive line stretching behind me, so I just told the very friendly woman helping me to give me whatever available seats had the best view. On a couple of the nights I'm in the grand tier, but for the other nights I'm fairly close up in the orchestra, which will be a whole new experience for me. Hopefully it'll all be fine and I'll be able to see the dancers' feet and everything. I have no idea.

My grandmother called me around noon on Monday, worrying that the 19th, which is the day we're going together, was already sold out. She was at City Center to pick up Encores tickets and heard an announcement. It was a relief to be able to assure her that we were all set. I'm particularly pleased that I managed to suggest something so cheap for her to take me to. If I mention even a passing interest in a show, even if it's expensive, even if she's already seen it, she insists on getting tickets to it, so I figure this will go some small way to making up for some of those Broadway tickets she's been determined to buy. We like to sit in the very last row--"way up in Heaven," she says--but it's still more than I like her to spend, so this is nice.